


Be With Me

by makeshiftcandy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Inappropriate Use of the Force, Jedi, Minor Finn/Rose Tico, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, Tatooine (Star Wars), World Between Worlds, ben solo thinks in comic emphases pass it on, making them work for their happy ending, rip jj abrams but i'm different
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:28:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 106,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21888916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makeshiftcandy/pseuds/makeshiftcandy
Summary: Ben, she whispered to the cavern in the back of her mind, the place where he used to live, as her eyes grew heavier and heavier.  It was dark now, unused space that she couldn’t really fathom but could feel.  As though the door that had bridged their minds together now opened into the vacuum of space, endless and black and cold, but she couldn’t bear to close it.  To do so would offer a finality she wasn’t ready to face.Sleep pulled her in further, her eyes slipping closed.  And, as consciousness became water, slipping through her fingers and dripping into a dreamless slumber, she thought she heard a whisper from that vacuum in her mind.  So soft and comforting, she couldn’t be certain she hadn’t imagined it.Rey.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 465
Kudos: 742
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp, star wars fanfics





	1. Here and Now

“Really? Are you sure about this, Rey?”

Finn looks around skeptically, his brow pulled together as he contemplates the latest in what Rey is sure he believes is a string of questionable decisions. But Rey has never felt more confident in her choice, so she quirks an eyebrow and puts a hand on her hip.

“What’s wrong with it?” she asks, already having an idea of the answer. Finn just takes another slow look around, turning back to her after a moment of sarcastic surveying.

“I just figured you were done with desert planets after the whole ‘Jakku’ thing,” he says, his fingers forming quotation marks, and Rey can’t help but grin.

“Jakku shaped who I am, you know,” she retorts, spinning on her heel and leading Finn deeper into the desert. “Plus, this desert is different.” She felt Finn’s hesitation before he followed her, their friendship always allowing him to put his complete faith in her, even if she knew he questioned her sanity at times.

“How can deserts be different?” Finn mumbled to himself, loud enough that he wanted Rey to hear but without any real malice. Rey knows that Finn just can’t _feel_ it yet. How this planet moves and glides with the power that flows through her veins. How this place was once the specter of some type of evolution in the Force.

She’ll never tell him that this is where she feels closest to _him_ , either. Because Finn really would call her crazy then. And maybe she’d be inclined to agree, in another life.

But in _this_ life, on _this_ planet, where it all began, is where she’s able to feel _him_ most.

The sand curls around her boots as she walks with a practiced step with Finn cursing behind her, slipping into small sink pits that are deceptively deeper than they look. He’d spent so much of his life on sure-footed titanium and durasteel floors, walking through nature never really caught with him.

Another reason this location was perfect.

She stopped, seemingly at an unexpected point, at the edge of the cliff she’d staked out the day before. Finn grunted as he trudged up alongside her, eyes scanning the distant horizon, a sheen of sweat building across his brow. He scoffed when he realized she’d not perspired a bit, and Rey chuckled before dropping, pulling her legs in a criss-cross against the dirt and stone of the ground. Finn watched her, hesitant, and she raised a brow, nodding to the spot beside her. With a heavy sigh, he sank into his own cross-legged sit, ungracefully falling to one side before catching himself on his forearm. He slapped his hands together to dispel the dirt, wiping them on his pants, and Rey waited patiently for him to finish. He hummed when he finally looked at her, lips pursed as though questioning why she would bring him out here in the middle of the summer with no protection against the two suns blazing above.

“Right,” she began, clapping her hands together. “This is your first lesson.” Finn looked around unimpressed, the rolling sand dunes and sheer cliff face nothing he hasn’t seen before, that fact stitched into every expression on his face.

“Sand? Sand is my first lesson?” he asks when she doesn’t elaborate, and Rey grins. She leans across the short distance between them, unclasping his hands from his lap and pulling his wrists so his hands rested on his knees.

“Close your eyes,” she said softly, and Finn looked at her a moment longer before obeying. “Take a deep breath in… and now out. Now, listen. What do you hear?”

“Wind,” Finn answered automatically, and Rey had to bite back a chuckle.

“Listen harder,” she suggested, and Finn sighed, his irritation only won out by his curiosity. He sat still for a long moment, and Rey could feel how natural it was for him, to stretch his senses. To use them _beyond_ what most are capable, what most can fathom.

“I hear…” he began slowly, his brow furrowing as he concentrated. “I hear something _whispering_.” His voice had taken on a cadence of awe as he focused, trying to grasp the end of a string that was just out of reach. Rey let him lean into a moment longer.

“And what do you feel?” she asked softly, pulling her legs in closer and mirroring his position.

Finn is quiet for a long moment, his mouth parted slightly as he takes in the sensations Rey remembers feeling her first time meditating. The eclectic mix of life and death, pain and joy, as it reverberates across terrain, across the planet. Slowly, he lifts his hands, placing them carefully on the ground next to him, his fingertips skimming the sand and rock.

“Everything,” he finally whispers. “And it’s all… _connected_. It… It weaves in between _everything_ , pulling and pushing and aligning.” Finn shakes his head, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “And...”

“And?” Rey prompted him when he didn’t speak again, leaning in closer.

“I see you,” Finn says simply, opening his eyes and catching hers. “Right in the middle of it all. Shining like a beacon.” Rey can’t help but smile.

“I’ve been trained in the Force,” she explains. “My signature is a little bit brighter because I know how to manipulate the energy.” Or so the texts explained, in a very droll passage about signature manipulation she more skimmed than read.

“It’s beautiful,” Finn breathes, and then he seems to catch himself, eyes widening a fraction before filling with resolve. He takes a deep inhale, and Rey watches him curiously as he seems to steel himself. “Rey, listen, I—”

Something moves in her peripheral, and Rey is on her feet in an instant, saber drawn but not ignited as she searches the horizon for a threat. Finn jumps to stand as well, hand hovering over the blaster clipped to his hip. Rey stares at the spot where she could have sworn something moved, squinting against the mid-afternoon suns, wishing she’d had the hindsight to bring her thermal binoculars.

“Rey?” Finn asks, and Rey glances at him before shaking her head.

“It was nothing,” she says aloud, though something is nagging in the back of her mind that it _wasn’t_ nothing, that she is missing something. She turns to him, clipping her hilt back to her belt. “Probably just a womp rat hunting. Let’s head back.” Finn doesn’t protest, despite how little ground they’d covered, excited at the possibility of removing himself from the suns as they gather themselves and begin the hike back to Luke’s childhood home.

Every now and then, something catches just at the edge of her vision, just beyond where she’s able to see, but no matter how quickly she whips her head, it’s gone before she can get a look.

* * *

Finn only stays until the early evening, thanking her for the lesson, however brief it was. He’d only stopped by while Poe and Rose bartered in Mos Eisley for parts to repair the VCX-100 light freighter they’d taken to piloting. Poe said it was the most inconspicuous thing he could think of to travel in during diplomatic missions. Much of the galaxy was in chaos with the First Order having fallen, after all the planets they’d destroyed and terrorized during their rise to power.

“You could come with us,” Rose said softly as Rey helped install a new calcifier to prevent buildup during hyperspace jumps. “You have to get lonely here, all by yourself. And I know Finn would really like having you along with us again.” She said the last sentence slowly, as though each individual word was somewhat painful to string together. Rey looked at the smaller girl with a light smile on her face.

“Perhaps,” Rey admitted with a small shrug. “But my place is here.” She’d never offered any further explanation, and only Finn had ever asked her why. Truthfully, she didn’t really know herself. Only that Tatooine called to her in a way that nowhere else did.

Finn throws a box of cargo up to Poe, and Rey takes the liberty of using the Force to hoist the last parcel up, a light smirk on her face when Finn whips around to catch her.

“You have to teach me that next time,” he insists, and Rey chuckles.

“We’ve barely even started lesson one and you’re jumping to lesson four,” she digs, and Finn huffs disdainfully. He eyes her for a long moment, and Rey knows that expression. It’s the one he wears when he wants to discuss something with her, a conversation she knows instinctively she isn’t ready to have yet. He’d worn it earlier, as well, before the vision in her periphery had interrupted. An excuse, but a valid one, at least.

“You should get going,” she interrupts before he can speak. “You’ll want to get out before the Jawas come sniffing around, smelling your new parts.”

Rose smiles, engulfing Rey in an unexpected hug. Poe and Finn join in after a moment, the four of them embracing as they had before the war was won, when victory seemed like the distant dreams of a madman and they barely scraped out with their lives. The hug felt different, now. Softer. Less desperate. The promise of tomorrow on all of their tongues without even an inkling of the old fear that they may not make it until then.

“Call us if you need anything,” Poe said, slapping Rey on the shoulder roughly. “I left a box of rations on your counter.” He knelt down next to BB-8, who’d rolled up while they packed up the freighter. “You take care of her, you hear me.” BB-8 beeped, offended, and Poe laughed. “Yeah, I know she should be the one taking care of you.” He patted the small droid’s head, then stood up, joining the other two as they made their way up the gangplank. With a last glance over his shoulder, Finn pulled the ramp up behind them.

Rey listened as Poe aligned the thrusters, the ship taking off from the sand smoothly. She watched, her heart growing heavy, as they faded further and further into the distance, until their ship became a streak in the sky as they hit the hyperspace lane.

BB-8 beeped dismally, and Rey smiled at the small orange-and-white droid. “Don’t worry. They’ll be back. Probably sooner, rather than later.” BB-8 beeped again as they turned toward the house. “No, you know Poe doesn’t trust me with you. He’d stop by every day if he had the time.”

BB-8 continued chirping as they moved into the hovel Rey had claimed as her own. No one bothered her much this far away from the outpost, and it felt safe here. Familiar. She was alone, but the loneliness wasn’t crushing like it used to be. Plus, she had BB-8 and Dio to keep her company when the nights felt especially long.

Putting away the rations Poe brought, she prepared herself a small meal, eating quietly as BB-8 and Dio conversed in the room over. She chuckled at their odd little banter, reminded of a far less contained C-3PO and R2-D2. Though R2 tended to be much more graphic, it was dulled by Threepio’s insistence to be proper. Dio and BB-8 didn’t have any restrictions.

She prepared the irrigation system to collect water for the following day, then walked out into the courtyard with one of the Jedi texts, spending her last couple hours of sunlight reading. It was peaceful here. The dwelling offered plenty of shade, and Tatooine had a constant breeze that Jakku had always lacked. The sand was finer, not the sharp little rocks of the Jakku desert, but something far softer and more pliant. She’d read up a little on the planet, because of the interesting ecosystems that had developed here, and found out it had been entirely oceanic millennia ago.

Finn didn’t understand the draw of this place because he couldn’t feel it yet. But it pulsated in the Force like a heartbeat, strong and steady and so _sure_.

Plus, all of her ghosts lived here.

She’d only seen Luke a few times in the months since she’d taken his former dwelling, watching carefully, engaging every so often to discuss ideas she was unsure about. Leia, too, once more since she’d landed, though the General didn’t speak, simply looked at her with a warm gaze before she faded out of existence again.

Her days were spent training, farming moisture for her own water consumption, and working on the X-Wing Luke had given her – despite how beautifully it still flew, years of being waterlogged had destroyed some of the computer systems. Initially, she couldn’t even get BB-8 to plug in.

Her evenings were spent reading, meditating, and drawing plans for a temple that still felt like a fever dream, too distant to really be attainable. Luke assured her that she was on the right path, that everything would come to her in time. She never dwelled on how some days seemed unbearably long, nor how the wall of her bedroom was slowly being taken over by small, perfect little tally lines that reminded her far too much of her childhood.

Counting again. Though she knew _why_ , it wasn’t as though she could explain. How do you count never-ending days?

Regardless, she added her mark before climbing into bed that night, burrowing under the quilts Luke said his Aunt Beru had made that she’d mended carefully of the years of decay in her first few days here.

Dio and BB-8 were both plugged in and powered down, and Rey rolled onto her back, staring at the curve of the ceiling in her quarters and trying to shut off her mind so sleep could take her.

It was more difficult some nights than others. Even with Finn, Poe and Rose’s visit, she hadn’t expelled enough energy to immediately fall into slumber. Being alone with only her own active mind for company was dangerous, her thoughts swirling like leaves in the breeze, a million pieces for her to reach out and grasp.

She somehow always managed to find the same one.

Black hair. Dark, shining eyes. A grin so wide she could see dimples that she never knew existed. A whisper in her mind, words she didn’t know he was too weak to say out loud, before he fell and faded so quickly. So quickly, she couldn’t save him, couldn’t give him some of his energy back, so they could toe the line between this world and the next before their destines took them where they were meant to be.

His Force flowed through her veins now. It had blended with her own, as her strength was restored when she’d healed after the battle with Palpatine, to make something that felt as natural as breathing, something that was a little different than what she was used to, but beautiful all the same. She _felt_ him with every breath she took, every beat of her heart, every tense of her muscles.

Tatooine made the feeling stronger. Like they were still two separate entities that operated as one being. Sometimes, if she closed her eyes while she was cooking or training, she could feel him just beside her. His wrist moving as she stirred her pot. His arms swinging as she brought down her saber. His legs crossing as she sat to meditate.

And when she cleared her mind, she could see his grinning face as he watched her move through her life, her days full and peaceful as she worked and planned and learned. He walked beside her in the desert in her shadow, and he lent her his strength when something felt particularly difficult, and he guided her to new and exciting caves and cliffs she could explore.

 _No one is ever really gone_ , Luke had told her once, what felt like eons ago. And he _wasn’t_ , he lived in her mind and her spirit and her blood.

But sometimes, nights would crawl by, and it was impossible to ignore the empty spot beside her in bed. She’d never shared her space so intimately, but she knew with absolute certainty that he would fit perfectly, his body curled around hers. His face pressed against her shoulder, his chest against her back. His breathing, deep and even, fanning out over her collar bone as he slipped into dreamland.

She would be warm and safe, wrapped in his arms.

The tears spilled silently as Rey curled on her side, a poor semblance of how it might be, of _what could have been_. She rested a hand against her stomach where she knew it would be interlocked with his, their fingers fitting together like puzzle pieces.

 _Ben_ , she whispered to the cavern in the back of her mind, the place where he used to live, as her eyes grew heavier and heavier. It was dark now, unused space that she couldn’t really fathom but could _feel_. As though the door that had bridged their minds together now opened into the vacuum of space, endless and black and _cold_ , but she couldn’t bear to close it. To do so would offer a finality she wasn’t ready to face.

Sleep pulled her in further, her eyes slipping closed. And, as consciousness became water, slipping through her fingers and dripping into a dreamless slumber, she thought she heard a whisper from that vacuum in her mind. So soft and comforting, she couldn’t be certain she hadn’t imagined it.

_Rey._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post this today, but I started crying as I was writing it and thought, why not?


	2. Dreamless

The next few days were spent mostly in her dwelling, repairing the electrical wiring that had corroded over years of disuse – her longest running project yet. Luke gave her some instruction, but it wasn’t all that different than fixing a ship. Just a far longer process, when she couldn’t focus on it completely. Plus, she didn’t mind living by lamplight in the waning hours after the suns set.

A week after her friends’ visit, she decided to take BB-8 and go exploring. There were miles of uncharted terrain on this planet, the desert too harsh a mistress for anyone to care to explore. She’d slowly been drawing a map, keeping track of where she’d visited versus where was still left unknown. Setting off with a couple of rations, she instructed Dio to work on cleaning the wiring cases, explicitly telling him not to strip anything, which made the small droid click in disdain. The last time she’d given him a task, she’d come back with half of the navigational system in the X-Wing pulled apart. It had taken her two days to reassemble.

With a slow, deep breath, Rey stood at the top of the dune just outside her courtyard, closing her eyes and lifting her face to the suns. The wind whipped through her hair, tangling the loose tendrils, and filling her nostrils with the distant scent of salt from a world long buried.

Standing there for a few minutes, she felt the Force stretch around her, forming and shaping with the wind as it danced through every granule of sand. It was pulling somewhere, a distant place in a direction she’d yet to go, and her feet had carried her a few steps before she even opened her eyes. BB-8 followed dutifully, the ever-faithful droid trusting Rey implicitly, even though she’d dropped a tree on him once.

The Force guided her as she hiked through the vast desert, carrying her over dunes, warning her when a herd of wraids passed nearby, advising her when to cover her face as the wind kicked up especially strong. She followed it like a beacon, a bright contrast in the distance leading her to the shores on a dark night. A star, shining brightly in the sky to lead her in the right direction.

The dunes picked up higher and higher, closing in on either side as the Force led her deeper toward the mountainous region. BB-8 trudged along, beeping every now and again about the heat, even though he had an internal core reactor that kept him from overheating. Rey quipped that the small droid had picked up being dramatic from Artoo, and BB-8 had sighed with a low beep. Rey laughed, certain the droid would have rolled its eyes, had it had any.

She let her fingertips trail along the cliff face as they walked through it, closing her eyes and inhaling the deep, salty scent of the planet. It was peaceful here. Never having to scramble to survive, never wondering if she’d have enough to eat tomorrow. The climate was the only similarity this place held to Jakku, and even then it was vastly different. Jakku was arid and stale, with hardly any wind to speak of unless there was a sandstorm on the horizon.

Tatooine was a haven compared to Jakku.

Her steps were sure as they led her further and further, walking her _toward_ something she was certain she’d recognize once she happened upon it.

BB-8 whistled lowly as the cliffs grew closer together, blocking out much of the sun, until he was skidding over the rock shelf instead of sand. Rey could touch both cliffs if she stretched her arm out, smiling to herself as BB-8 cursed in binary behind her. Artoo really had corrupted Poe’s innocent little droid.

Finally, the cliffs spilled into an opening of soft sand surrounded by the mountains on all side, the way a meadow in a forest is surrounded by trees. They rose up, keeping out much of the sun but letting the perfect amount of light filter through. It was large enough to fit her entire home, yet still small enough to be lost if a ship happened to be flying above, an area she’s certain smugglers have used to hide from jailers and crime lords alike.

Walking into the center, she felt a cool breeze wrap around her cheek and neck, a caress of the wind that urged her to the left. Following it led her to the mouth of a cave, set beneath eye level in the side of the cliffs, nearly hidden. She hesitated at the opening, then turned to BB-8, who, if at all possible, was giving her the most incredulous look a droid with no face could muster.

“Well, come on,” she urged, a light smile tugging on the corner of her lips. “You have to help me map it.” BB-8 beeped an expletive at her, and she whirled around, raising a brow as the small droid shrunk back. “Care to repeat that?” BB-8 chirped a negative. “That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”

The cave darkened almost as soon as they stepped inside, the direction it faced allowing no sunlight to filter through the huge cliff walls on all sides. Rey pulled her saber from its holster, igniting the yellow blade. Casting the rock walls in a warm glow that made the shadows dance as they moved their way deeper into the cave. Her heart fluttered anxiously in her chest, excitement for something she couldn’t grasp, not quite yet.

And just at the edge of her vision, flickering differently in the light of her saber, something _moved_.

Rey whipped around, instinct kicking in, her hand flying up and pushing the Force toward the object. The Force hit the wall, grinding the stone, causing dust and debris to rain down into the ground and swirl between her and BB-8. The small droid gave a curious beep, and Rey looked to where the thing had been, raising the light of her blade and seeing nothing but the stretch of cave they’d already covered.

Worse, she didn’t _feel_ anything, either. Hers was the only signature, save for the small insects that inhabited this cave. But something had definitely moved, she’d swear on it.

Likely the same thing she’d seen move yesterday, out in the vast wasteland with Finn. An energy she couldn’t trace, something keeping itself concealed from her power. She knew such a thing wasn’t impossible – Luke had cut himself off from the Force for years, completely debilitating his signature so no one could find him.

But what kind of being would be here _now_? Following her, stalking her. Something clearly Force-sensitive enough to hide its signature, to disappear too quickly for her to even catch its shape.

“Show yourself!” she shouted into the black abyss; saber held defensively in front of her.

Her shout went unanswered, save for the confused beep of her droid. She stood there another moment before easing herself out of her stance, a shaky exhale exiting her lungs. BB-8 questioned her again, but how could she possibly explain anything to him?

“I thought I saw something,” she said lamely. BB-8 probably would have shrugged if he could, then continued wheeling down the long passageway. After a moment, she turned to follow him.

And stopped.

Whatever it was that had been playing at the edge of her vision stood before her now. Just out of the light, a shadow slightly darker than the ones cast by her weapon. Her breath hitched in her chest, because she _knew_ that shape, would know it anywhere. It had been at the forefront of her thoughts for months now.

Lips parted in disbelief, Rey felt her heart skip a beat as her skin erupted in gooseflesh. She stuttered over an inhale, shoulders shaking as she processed what she knew couldn’t possibly be true.

“Ben,” she breathed, watching as the figure moved fractionally, like he, too, shuddered through an exhale. Like he, too, was in a state of disbelief that he was there, that he could see her, face lit only by the glow of her lightsaber. She thought she could hear his breath echoing against the walls of the cave.

She took a step toward him, desperate to touch him, to find out if his skin was as warm as it had been in her memory, if his hair was just as soft, and—

He was gone.

She blinked once, twice, turning to look over her shoulder before stepping toward where she was absolutely certain he’d stood just a second before. She met a large boulder, as high as her shoulders, protruding from the ground. Putting her hand against it, she was only met with the resistance of cool stone, coarse against her fingertips.

With an angry yell, Rey spun, tears stinging in her eyes as she brought the yellow blade down on that rock, slicing it clean in half, then into fourths with her next upswing. She stood there a moment, panting, her heart aching with a phantom emotion she knew all too well. It had been curled up there since Exegol, sleeping soundly most of the time, a weight she could ignore if she didn’t dwell on it for long. Only rearing up and stretching during those late nights that sleep eluded her, enveloping her in something heavy and sad. A blanket designed to suffocate.

It blinked awake now, dragging her to her knees as it sunk its claws into her heart. She sat there a moment, just breathing, willing away the tears, willing the beast back to sleep.

When she’d come, Leia had watched from a distance, a warm presence with crinkling eyes and a smile Rey returned every time she came back to it. She’d never sewn before, but mending those old quilts became muscle memory with Leia standing over her shoulder, silent but strong, guiding her movements when she didn’t use her voice.

Luke talked her through farming moisture, taught her how to rewire the home he’d left her, explained passages in the texts she wasn’t sure about. He walked beside her in the desert, showing her where he used to hunt womp rats, where he’d first met Threepio and Artoo, where Ben Kenobi lived once, in a ramshackle hut in a far worse state of deterioration than his own home had been.

Ben sat in her memory and her thoughts and her soul, guiding her with the Force, smiling in the back of her mind where he once lived. Watching over her, she thought, when she couldn’t bear the other creeping feelings that lived within her.

But she’d never _seen_ him. Those thoughts, the way he stood with her, _within_ _her_ , was her own memory. His Force in her veins, an echo in her power where he lived and laughed. Not _Ben_ , not really. Just the pieces of himself he’d left behind.

Leia and Luke were real, physical beings existing both in this plane and another. They could reach out and touch, and she could _feel_ them, feel their Force when they apparated in her house to offer guidance and wisdom and sewing lessons.

Ben was an evocation. What she felt of his Force existed within her. Like shouting her own name into a valley, but instead of her voice in the echo, it’s his that returns to her.

It was usually enough. But right now, with the pain raking through her chest like hot coals, as fresh as it had been those months ago on Exegol, there was nothing in her mind except the void where Ben once lived and the replaying thought that it was so incredibly _unfair_.

Ben had given half of himself to her so she could live. In turn, she’d lost half of herself when he died.

Two sides of the same coin, Luke had called them. Two halves of a whole. And she was incomplete now.

BB-8 comes back around the bend he’s disappeared beyond, beeping worriedly at Rey as she sat on her knees, catching her breath. She tries to give him a reassuring smile that is definitely more of a grimace, she can feel it. The droid whistles lowly when it sees the boulder she’d destroyed, and she shakes her head, climbing to her feet.

“I thought I saw something,” she says before he can ask. “Turns out it’s dark down here, and my eyes were playing tricks on me.”

The words sound hollow against the empty cave walls, and feel just as hollow in her chest.

BB-8 looks at her another moment before whistling that he thinks he found something, leading Rey back around the bend from where he’d emerged. She follows him, holding the saber out and trying to slow the beating of her heart back so some semblance of normalcy. It was still thundering in her chest over an encounter she couldn’t explain, that simply left her… empty.

BB-8 stopped after a few dozen yards, whistling lowly before turning on his projector. The entire cavern they now found themselves in suddenly lit up, casting blue light over a room far larger than Rey had been anticipating. She looked around in awe, her eyes darting around, never able to fix on any one thing for long.

It was something ancient. A magnificent place that had been built over centuries of erosion and sediment buildup. It rose for what seemed like miles above their heads, a few small cracks in the ceiling filtering in the barest amount of sunlight, so far away Rey had to squint to make sure it wasn’t a hallucination.

The ground beneath them was completely stone, and Rey sank to her knees, pressing her hands firmly against the ground. She closed her eyes, feeling the earth rumble beneath her fingertips, whispering with _life_ and _death_ and _Force_ , stronger here than she’d ever felt it. Like this was the place where the planet got its supply.

It was when she finally looked at the ground that she realized why BB-8 had brought her in here.

The entire ground was _covered_ in runes. Rey stepped back, not having realized she stood in the dead center. She looked up at the walls again, trying to see, but it was still too dark to make anything out, even with her saber and BB-8’s projector. She bent down again, tracing her fingers over the shape of one, and she shivered as something within this room reached out to her. As though she should be able to see more than she was able, or as though it was waiting for her to _feel_ what it needed her to feel. Heart thundering in her chest again, Rey stood her full height, slowly fanning out and using her saber to see as much of the walls as she could.

Most of the walls were bare, save for one. As she approached, that figure flickered into existence in her peripheral again. Rey stopped moving, hardly breathing, wanting desperately to acknowledge it but terrified he’d fade away again. Instead she stood motionless, waiting, her hands shaking, making the light of her saber vibrate against the walls.

The figure moved, almost imperceptibly, and then, seeming to understand why she was stationary, he lifted a hand and pointed at a spot the wall.

Rey blinked, and he was gone.

Ignoring the ache as it pulsed, she followed where she believed he’d been pointing, looking at a specific set of dialect on the wall. It was all in a language she didn’t understand and couldn’t even begin to translate.

But perhaps someone could.

“C’mon, Beebee,” Rey said, turning back toward the way they’d come. “We won’t be able to decipher any of this on our own. Gotta call in the reinforcements.”

BB-8 squawked as they left, and Rey laughed. “Yeah, tomorrow we’ll come in the speeder, I promise.”

…

Intrinsically, she knew she was sleeping. Everything felt distorted, a side-step to the reality she was accustomed to. She moved listlessly through this plane of existence, her feet guiding her to something just on the edge of her perception. They led the way, allowing her consciousness to separate from her moving body and take in her surroundings.

This world was unlike anything she’d ever seen. Bathed in pure white light, washing away any color from the surrounding trees and flowers that bowed away as she walked through them. But the shadows they cast were darker than the darkest night, a black hole that contrasted against the white in a way that made it feel disconnected completely. Two separate entities shaped exactly the same. The wind rustled, blowing the trees, and the black shadows they cast moved in tandem. A dance between partners. The light of the sun and the place where monsters hid.

It should scare her, but this place felt far too familiar. As though she’d been here a hundred times before. Her legs carried her down a well-worn path she’d traversed a thousand times before today’s first. The flowers raised their faces to her in recognition as she passed, the trees seemed to embrace her like an old friend. A bubbling creek of black and white introduced itself in a foreign language she understood.

The trees grew further apart as her legs carried her, stretching toward a meadow she’d never seen before, but knew exactly how far she still had to go.

The meadow itself sat in a pool of long grass that came to her hips, the white stalks and black shadows swaying gently in the breeze. Her fingertips grazed the tips as she moved through, relishing in the soft plushness, wishing she could lay in this grass, if only she didn’t have somewhere important to be. But her mind told her the journey was worth it, that what awaited her at the end could never compare to laying in a meadow of grass.

Halfway through, she knew to look up. She knew what she would see. A grin broke across her face, uncontained and elated, so wide it hurt her cheeks.

“Ben!”

She ran, and he met her halfway, catching her as she jumped into his arms. He held her in the air for a moment, like she weighed nothing, and maybe in this world she did. She buried her face in his neck, inhaling the rich, woodsy scent of him, no longer obstructed by the smell of blaster fire and lightsaber burns. He lowered her to the ground, one arm tight around her waist, the other holding the back of her neck, keeping her against him, as though she’d disappear if he let her go.

“You always do, cyar’ika,” he whispered, his voice deep and rich, just how she remembered. She finally pulled back, trying desperately to blink away the tears in her eyes so she could _see him_. “But you always come back.” He cupped her cheek, thumb trailing along the underside of her eye, wiping away the escaped traitors from her ducts. The arms she’d clasped around his shoulders moved up, fingers running through his hair, relishing in the silky texture. Tracing his brow, his nose, his lips, she gasped lightly when she realized the warm, soft skin was giving beneath her attentions.

“You’re here,” she said, awed, brushing his hair back over one ear.

“I never left,” he assured her. She felt her chest constrict, that thing trying to wake up, and he hushed her quietly, bringing his lips to her forehead and leaving them there for a long moment.

“What is this place?” she asked after they’d stood for some time, simply existing in the embrace. She felt Ben shake his head against her hair.

“It’s not important,” he said softly, and she believed him. She knew, anyway, somehow. “We don’t have long.”

_We never do_ , she thought, and Ben pulled back to look down at her. Warm, brown eyes crinkled with tenderness met her, and she traced the outline of his cheeks. He leaned into the gesture, holding her hand against his face and turning to kiss her palm. She could feel the texture of his hand, the warmth of his skin against hers. The way his lips, soft and plush, pressed into her palm. The way his fingers, long and solid, held her hand. She could trace him for a hundred years and never grow tired of the map of his skin, the way it felt against hers.

“Did you find it?” he asked, and she nodded excitedly, her eyes lighting up.

“I’ll have to go back again tomorrow with lanterns. And it’s in a language I can’t decipher, but I think Threepio will probably know.” She grimaced. “Not that I want him to lose his memory again, of course, but if I can at least find out what _language_ it is, then maybe I can find a translator. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and it won’t be some crazy forbidden language in the first place. Plus, it’d probably save me money of Threepio could just translate it,” she trailed off, finally looking at him again instead of tracing a small circle against his black-clad pectoral. Ben was smiling down at her, something full of so much _adoration_ that her breath caught in her throat.

“Ben?”

He chuckled, shaking his head, wearing an expression she recognized. The one from Exegol, that mixture of pure elation and unbearable sadness. She brought her hand back up to his face, and he caught it, lacing their fingers together and instead running the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

“Your faith is astounding,” he said softly, and Rey grinned, her next words coming of their own volition, without the barrier in her mind to muddle and confuse them.

“I told you from the start I’d find you no matter where you went.” She blinked at her own sentence, but the absolute _rightness_ of it settled in her chest, and she shook her head of the confusion. Ben’s expression didn’t change, that same soft longing and deep devotion. He brought his spare hand up, tucking a few loose tendrils of hair behind her ear.

“You are incredible,” he responded, and Rey felt her lips part with a rebuttal, but he shook his head. “We’re nearly out of time, cyar’ika. Will you spend the rest of it arguing with me?”

Rey blinked, glancing around the meadow, noting the way the washed white and deep black had changed, altered, the black growing longer, like an unseen sun was beginning to set. She looked back to Ben, shaking her head.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye yet,” she whispered. As though preserving this bubble may keep him with her longer. “There are so many things I need to say to you. I didn’t even get to yell at you for sacrificing yourself for me.”

Ben exhaled sharply through his nose; a chuckle, maybe, if his eyes weren’t so sad. “Next time, Rey. Yell at me next time.”

And then he leaned down, only a breath of hesitation before capturing her lips with his. She threw her arms around his shoulders, pulling him to her. Her blood sang, her spirit finally united with its other half in an embrace she was supposed to have shared with him a hundred, a thousand times. His lips gave just as much as they took, soft and pliant and demanding all at once. She kissed him back with everything she had to offer, nothing but skin and Force and _Ben_.

Her soul recognized its other half and reached for it.

She felt him reach back, and the light exploded.

…

The alarm she’d installed on BB-8 was getting taken out first thing this morning. She grabbed one of the pillows from beneath her head, hurdling it across the room. The patterned beeping she’d installed stopped, only to be replaced by BB-8’s indignant screeching at nearly hitting him with a flying object.

Rey groaned, sitting up. “Okay, okay, calm down,” she said, reaching over and pressing the button on the top of the droid’s head to turn off the alarm. “I’m sorry I threw something at you, but I think _projectile_ is a bit dramatic.”

BB-8 huffed, and Rey rolled her eyes, before it beeped the same question he asked every day. Rey thought for a moment, then shook her head.

“No, no dreams,” she said with a shrug. “Not for a long time now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite thing about writing this is knowing how much my brother would absolutely hate it if he found it.


	3. Rebuild and Repair

She was sitting in the courtyard, twenty-odd lanterns strewn about, wires hanging precariously on the walls and around the clothesline for easier repair access, when four familiar Force signatures suddenly broke atmo miles above her head, growing closer by the second.

Standing, Rey wiped her hands with an oil-stained rag, looking up toward where a black dot was gradually growing closer as BB-8 beeped curiously.

“Something there?” D-O stuttered, although less now that he’d actually warmed up to Rey and allowed her to work on repairing his processor. Whatever it was that his previous owner had done to him left scars in his programming, deep rivulets of burned wiring and smoldered metal. Like the brute had electrocuted the droid with a cattle prod for the fun of it.

“Friends,” she answered both droids, a smile on her face. BB-8 beeped excitedly, wheeling up the stairs and out as Rey and D-O followed. “Earlier than I expected them, too.”

The _Millennium Falcon_ touched down a few minutes later, Rey standing far enough back to not be pelted by the sand kicked up. Chewie had clearly been working on her – the thrusters hardly whined at all anymore, the engines taking less time to power down and conserving energy and fuel. They hadn’t had time to do the necessary repairs before, but with an unlimited amount of free time on the wookiee’s hands, Rey was sure the _Falcon_ was the only priority.

The ramp had barely descended when BB-8 went barreling up, D-O hot on his trail, beeping excitedly about Poe and Artoo and _not being on this planet anymore, Poe, please, there’s so much sand_. She approached the ship and heard Poe laughing from the pit while Chewie growled about too-tiny droids that were a hazard to his feet. She chuckled, too, as Finn and Rose stepped out. Finn’s face lit up to see her waiting for them, and he made his way down the gangplank, wrapping her up in a hug as though it’d been a month since their last encounter, not a week.

She reached out and tugged on Rose’s hand, who huffed in faux annoyance before allowing herself to be dragged into the embrace.

“What are you guys doing back so soon?” Rey asked once they broke apart. “I wasn’t thinking I’d see you again for a week, maybe longer.”

“We missed you!” Poe announced loudly as he descended the ramp with Chewie and three droids in tow. Rose rolled her eyes as Chewbacca wrapped her in a novelty hug that Rey returned with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

“What he means is, the _Falcon_ ’s hyperdrive has been acting up and we were hoping you could take a look,” Rose filled in. Chewbacca grumbled against the top of Rey’s head before letting her go, telling Rey that Poe had no idea how to take care of an antique.

"Excuse you, I know how to take care of this ship!”

“Yeah, because Poe is an antique,” Finn mumbled, and Rey and Rose both snorted. Poe glared at the three of them.

“It’s not my fault you won’t throw it into hyperdrive when I tell you to!” Chewie growled, gurgling in his language the crux of the matter, and Rey wheeled around, facing the other pilot.

“What does he _mean_ the quadex core was smoking?” Poe pulled back, suddenly a bit sheepish, as Chewie continued growling. Rey glanced at him, her jaw dropping open, as he explained the issue that Poe had been so desperate to keep secret. She reeled back to Poe, eyes narrowed with absolute fury.

“Poe, what does he _mean_ the new compressor negatively reacted with the computer system and nearly melted the entire core?”

Poe stayed quiet, innocently looking at the sky. Rey had half a mind to pop him in his jaw, break the perfect chisel he’d inherited from his parents.

“Poe, _what compressor_ is Chewie talking about?” Cue the innocent whistling, but Rey was on the verge of seeing red if he kept playing coy. “Because there _was_ a compressor. I _remember_ that, because _I’m the one that bypassed it_.”

Rose is the one to put a hand on Rey’s shoulder when she attempted an unconscious step forward. Taking a deep breath in through her nose, Rey squared her shoulders, turning from Poe and the absolute wrath he was near inciting and back to Chewie, who looked just as begrudging as Rey.

“Show me, then,” she instructed Chewie, who shrugged off Poe’s half-hearted apology pat and walked back up the ramp with Rey.

She spent the rest of the day aboard the _Falcon_ , kicking everyone off save for Rose and Chewie, the only two she felt were competent enough to actually help her in undoing Poe’s horrendously stupid mistake. He grumbled about how it seemed like a good idea at the time, that all of the wiring and communications system was there, and Rey had to stop herself from screaming that it was there because _she’d fixed it already_. But she held her cool, merely gave him a pointed look that had him running with his tail between his legs.

On her fourth try, the navigational system still refused to reroute to the core through the backup computer. The compressor had suppressed the hyperspace router, and the quadex core had attempted to compensate by surging extra energy and fuel into the backup engine, which not even Rey was certain still functioned correctly. Regardless, the secondary engine rejected the overcompensation, pushing it back into the core and making the entire system overheat. She was near giving up altogether, marching off this ship, and punching Poe right in the face.

Cursing as sparks stung her hands _again_ , Rey sighed deeply, her hands beginning to shake just from the sheer amount of electricity she’d suffered. Like tiny insect stings against her fingertips, over and over, surging under her skin and sending shockwaves up her arms. Once more, and she grit her teeth against a scream of pain, dropping her wrench and shaking her hands as though that may dispel the alien sensation.

_Breathe_ , the Force whispered in a voice she almost recognized, from a place closer than she realized. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in through her nose. _Feel it, Rey. You know the answer to this._

Slowly, the frustration ebbed away, pouring out of her skin like water and flowing away in a river of discarded emotion. Another deep breath in, the pressure of phantom hands squeezing her shoulders reassuringly reminding her that this was a simple problem, that her emotion was near getting the better of her.

_The core is overheating_ , she thought in that same near-familiar voice. _Rerouting the nav system is proving impossible. What other options are there?_

She pulled herself from beneath the dashboard, grabbing the stepladder Rose kept up here and climbing into the mess that was the wiring system. An intersected configuration was shot, the wires practically smoldered together with how overheated they’d grown, and Rey huffed. Poe was a dead man if he kept taking it upon himself to upgrade her ship, that was absolutely certain.

She called for Rose, having the mechanic assist in depositing an entirely new wiring system, saving and refurbishing what they could and shirking the rest into Chewie’s waiting palms.

“I don’t want him piloting the _Falcon_ anymore,” Rey said vehemently to Rose. “He mistreats my ship, he loses piloting privileges.”

“Good luck telling him that,” Rose grumbled. “We can barely get him out of that seat long enough to do necessary diplomatic missions. You cut him off completely, he’s going to throw a fit.”

“I don’t care,” Rey responded, huffing as she yanked the complex data card from its generator, flicking off processing chips and handing it to Rose to add the replacements. “The only reason he even _has_ this ship is because I couldn’t in good conscience keep it here for myself and keep Chewie from his family.”

_There’s no way Chewie would ever leave the_ Falcon, she thought to herself, and the nod from Rose told Rey they were on the same wavelength.

Chewie was in the main room, resetting the core on Rey’s direction. Rey looked down the corridor where he’d disappeared, taking a slow breath.

“You know Chewie would stay here with you if you asked him, right,” Rose said softly, her mind most likely in a similar place. Luke’s X-Wing wasn’t a reliable mode of transportation, thirty years old and as decrepit as it had become during the years it slept within that watery grave.

“Chewie deserves to retire,” Rey responded, reinserting the data card Rose handed back to her, taking a new set of wiring and attaching it to the projection generator, smiling in triumph when the box beeped to life.

Rose said nothing more, but Rey could feel how the mechanic turned those words over in her mind, the retort on the tip of her tongue and swallowed back. Rose’s next point was going to extend another invitation to return with them, to take her place in their group as the symbol of hope, of the Jedi. That even her very presence might help corral the galaxy as they work to rebuild the Republic once more, appointing figureheads and choosing a new system for the Senate to reside. Viewing the return of the Jedi Order may return the hope the galaxy lost in the wake of the First Order.

She doesn’t know how to express to them that she’s not a Jedi, not really. She can hardly communicate with any of them, save for Luke. Since Exegol they’ve been quiet, leaving her to her own devices as she navigates the galaxy without its weight on her shoulders.

Absently, she wonders if they’re giving her room to grieve. An allowance she hasn’t even granted to herself.

How can she, when Ben still feels so close?

“Chewie, power it up!” Rey shouted, welcoming the distraction from that thought process. She heard Chewie grunt his acquiescence, then the sound of the switch being flipped and surging electricity through the ship. Rey hopped down from the stepladder, slipping under the dash and pulling the new wiring through the tunnel compartment, attaching the new routing system. She waited a moment before powering the ship on.

Everything turned over with ease, and Rey breathed a sigh of relief as Rose whooped with joy. Chewie came barreling in, wrapping both Rey and Rose in a hug that crushed their lungs, but Rey gasped a chuckle of disbelief, listening to the soft humming of the ship, reveling in the absent whines of the alarm system telling her something was wrong.

“Looks like you got everything sorted out,” Poe said from behind them, leaning against the doorway to the cockpit. Rey broke the embrace with Chewie and Rose, marching up to the pilot.

“You will not touch this ship again without my or Chewie’s knowledge,” she said acidly, pointing a finger in his chest. He straightened his back, probably trying to be more imposing, difficult when they measured the same height.

“I was trying to make her better. How was I supposed to know you’d stripped the compressor?”

“I don’t know, maybe because the compressor was stripped in the first place?”

“Han was old. Could have been oversight on his part.”

“Don’t you dare drag Han into this—”

"Well it’s not like you left me a detailed map on all the work she needs—”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll draw you one and shove it right up your—”

“Okay!” Rose said loudly, physically squeezing between the argument and putting a hand on Poe’s chest and Rey’s shoulder. “This is not solving anything. The ship is fixed. Let’s just be happy about that, okay?”

Poe was clearly not ready to let it go. He took a half-step backward, so Rose wasn’t touching him and crossed his arms. “Maybe we wouldn’t have run into this issue in the first place if you were actually with us out there.”

Rey grit her teeth. “Not this again.”

“Oh, definitely this again,” Poe shouted after her as she pushed past him, heading down the hallway toward the descended ramp. “You keep walking away from us, but we both know that you should be out there helping us put the galaxy back together!” Rey shook her head, barreling back into the afternoon suns, hoping to have her lanterns put together before they set so she could reconvene back to the cave of runes at first light tomorrow.

But Poe wasn’t finished. He followed her off the ramp, despite Finn’s attempt to restrain him. “You can’t even get over whatever it was that happened on Exegol, and you’re just hiding here like a coward!”

The beast in Rey’s chest roared as tears blurred her vision, and she whirled around as Poe grabbed her arm, yanking his fingertips away from her skin and shoving him back.

“You have _no idea_ what I went through on Exegol,” she hissed through clenched teeth, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay. “You have _no idea_ what I lost!”

Poe kept quiet for a long moment, searching her eyes, the impending argument clearly written on his face. He sighed, and it fizzled away like a breeze. “We would if you’d just _tell us_.”

Rey glanced behind him, where Finn, Rose and Chewie were standing by the _Falcon_ , waiting for the imminent explosion that always accompanied Rey and Poe when they went at it.

And in theory, it’s that simple, isn’t it? To just explain. To just sit down with your friends and tell them your secrets.

But she doubts even Finn would understand. The connection to Ben, to Kylo Ren, that ran across the stars, deeper than her bones, her marrow. That stretched the galaxy and beyond, that persisted now, even in his absence, leaving such a vast emptiness in the cavern of her chest that it was hard to breathe most of the time.

All they ever saw was the fighting. Rey drawing her saber and Ben reacting. Ben scouring the galaxy for the Resistance, for _her_ , desperate to prove himself to his army, to the galaxy and to a dead man.

None of it even felt real anymore.

Finn had _felt it_ when she died, just as he felt her return. When he asked, she just shrugged and said, “The Force decided it wasn’t my time.” Because she could see, just by the hopeful look on his face, that he hadn’t felt Ben’s death. Or maybe he had, and he simply didn’t care.

“You should go before the suns set,” she responded instead, and Poe deflated, pulling away and stepping back. “You know better than to get caught here after dark.”

He looked up, where both of the suns were still high in the sky, and took a deep breath. Looking as if he wanted to say more, but Rey turned away, heading back to the Lars hovel. Finn called after her, and then she heard his feet skidding across the sand.

“Rey, wait,” he said, grabbing her arm. She immediately pulled away from him, turning to look at him. He was a stair above her, but he suddenly looked so small when he registered the obvious distress across her features. “You know you can talk to any one of us, right?”

She tried to smile, truly. But the worry that took over her friend’s countenance told her all she needed to know about her own expression. “You just wouldn’t understand.”

"How can you know when you won’t even talk to us?” He sounded genuinely hurt, and Rey had to take a deep breath to quell the monster as it tried to claw through her chest, to silence him. As if Finn, of all people, had the right to be in pain when she was the one missing half of everything she was.

“It’s just Force stuff,” she managed half-heartedly.

“Then teach me, so I can understand,” he implored, and Rey felt her lips curl of their own accord. Finn wanted so much to help, she could feel his concern muddled with a hint of desperation in his words, his actions.

“One day,” she responded, a half-lie. Because no matter how much Finn knew about the Force, he’d never really understand, not truly. His Force was his own, not so tightly interwoven with someone who gave everything so she could live.

“I’m holding you to that,” he responded, not detecting her half-truth. He reached out, and she let him take her hand in his, squeezing twice before letting go.

Rose approached behind them, glancing quickly down at their connected hands before purposefully averting her eyes. She nodded at Finn, who gave her a long look before taking the hint and leaving.

“You’re really just going to ditch me with those two nerf-herders?” Rose asked skeptically, and Rey’s laughter was genuine now. Rose was perhaps the only person that could drag such a response out of her when she fell into this melancholy. “I know Finn and Poe just want what’s best for you, but I don’t think either of them really know how to be there for you in a way that you need.”

Rey gave a small shrug, leaning against the wall of the courtyard. The lanterns were still strewn about, wires, parts and tools all precariously thrown in her haste to greet her friends.

“Rey,” Rose said, snapping her out of her thoughts and back to reality. “It’s okay to need space, and to need time. You’re right – we _don’t_ know what you lost on Exegol. And we won’t know if you don’t tell us. But,” the smaller girl reached out, taking both of Rey’s hands in her own and squeezing them tightly, “it’s also okay if you decide _not_ to tell us.”

Rose said nothing more, just squeezed Rey’s hands again before giving her a warm smile and backing away. She, Poe and Finn boarded the _Falcon_ , prepping for takeoff while Chewie gave Rey another bone-crushing hug, letting her know he’d be back within the week, since Lando was talking about coming through this way looking for specific parts.

“Go home, Chewie,” Rey laughed. “Don’t let Lando get you caught up in his unsavory activities.”

Chewie growled, telling her that _someone needs to keep that old karker in line, kid_ , before letting her go with a rough pat to her head. Rey laughed as he mussed her hair before turning and boarding with the others.

Once the _Falcon_ was nothing more than a streak in the afternoon sky, Rey looked around the courtyard at her dishevelment of lanterns and wiring, sighing deeply. Her mood was soured considerably, and only the inkling that perhaps doing _something_ with her hands will help her find peace again drags her back to the unintentionally abandoned task.

The suns are nearly set when she finishes. The droids help her set up to farm for the following day’s water, help her pull all of the lanterns in and tie them to her speeder. D-O lights up the house with her spare lighting as she cooks dinner, and BB-8 helps her clean the dishes at the end of the night.

It’s quiet. Peaceful. The day’s frustrations have melted away, receding with the ocean tide and calming her frayed edges. The Force hums quietly with her as she sets the Jedi texts out on the kitchen table, her hands hovering over the volumes until she pulls one out that whispers the loudest.

Sinking into the pages, Rey loses herself in the text for the rest of the night.

…

_Dreaming again_ , she thinks as she wanders through a pure white meadow with the blackest shadows. The air is light, filling and expanding her lungs in deep pulls as she glides down a familiar path she’s sure she’s never seen before. Her feet carry her through unfamiliar terrain like they’ve mapped it a thousand times. The way the Force once guided her through the wreckage in the Jakku graveyard, leading her to the best pieces that would fetch the most portions.

She used to call it her instinct. In a way, she supposes she wasn’t necessarily wrong.

Jogging, now, with adrenaline pumping through her veins, every heartbeat pounding excitement into her blood like a drum. There’s something waiting for her at the end of this journey, there always is. An extension of herself, the only piece she’s able to keep tethered to—

_Him._

He waits patiently at the edge of the meadow, his black hair and pale skin in perfect symbolism with the strange world that surrounds him. As though he _belongs_ here, in this unknown place, which is completely ridiculous because he belongs—

“With me,” she breathes as he wraps her in his arms. She feels tears bubbling beneath the surface, taking a gasping breath to hold them back, her cheek pressing into the warm skin of his neck. “You’re with me.”

“Always,” he responded softly, and she smiled at the feeling of his rumbling voice against her shoulder. “Always, Rey. I’m never far.”

Rey shook her head, pursing her lips as the tears spilled of their own accord.

“I can’t feel you anymore,” she whispered into the skin of his shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she fisted her hands into the fabric of his tunic, keeping his warmth pressed against her so that she might convince herself that this is real.

“This is real,” he whispered, responding to her unspoken thought, and she shook her head.

“I can’t feel you anymore,” she said again, a little louder, pulling away from him so she could shove his chest. But her hands remained clutching the fabric of his shirt, never letting him go despite the anger that was slowly encasing her excitement. She glared at him, at his eyes, so incredibly soft and endlessly sad. As though he expected this from her. As though he anticipated this. She shoves him again. “I can’t _feel you_ anymore! Where have you been? _Where have you been!?_ ” she sobs, and he catches her shoulders, pulling her back against his chest and pressing his face into her hair. “ _I can’t feel you! I can’t feel anything anymore!”_

Her heart is cracking to pieces as he pulls her tighter against him, wrapping an arm around her waist, the other buried in her hair, an echo of the last embrace they shared when he still walked beside her. She clings to him, sobs racketing through her ribs as tears flowed endlessly.

“Feel this,” he breathed against her temple, his voice cracking. Reaching down, he untangled her fist from the crumpled fabric of his tunic, slowly stretching her fingers until they aligned with his. Until the soft, warm skin of his palm was conformed and pressed against hers. Slowly, he slid their fingers together, his palm against the back of her hand, and laid it carefully against his chest.

It took a moment, as the sobbing subsided, her shoulders ceasing to shake with every inhale. She looked at where her hand was, laid against his chest, his own hand holding it there and engulfing hers completely, so that no part of her hand was untouched by him.

And then she felt it.

Faint. Too faint, a whisper against her palm. And slow, slower than it should be. Slower than that of the luggabeast she’d found, nestled behind her fallen AT-AT so long ago, critically injured and far enough gone that her nursing couldn’t save it. When she’d dug through all of that thick fur to lay her head against it’s breastbone, feel the beat against her ear, so slow she nearly missed it.

This beat against her palm was slower still, barely there. But it was _real_ , that slow, rhythmic thumping against her hand where he pressed it into his chest. It was _real_ , if far too faint, far too slow to be logical.

“Feel me, cyar’ika,” he implored, pressing his forehead against hers and keeping her hand against his chest. “I’m right here, even when you’re absolutely certain I’m not.”

“Why can’t I feel you?” she whispered, closing her eyes and willing the soft, unnatural thumping of his heart against her palm to memory. “Why do you feel lost?”

“I am lost,” he responded lowly, and Rey squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head and biting her lip. His other hand tilted her chin up, swiping his thumb against her bottom lip until she released it from the prison of her teeth and looked at him. His eyes were fathomless, deep, burning pools of liquid fire, melting her down to her very core. “I’m lost, Rey. You need to come find me.”

He pressed his lips to hers once, so quickly she wasn’t certain she hadn’t imagined it. But the heart beating against her palm stayed, even as the inky black shadows stretched and the brilliant white light around them faltered. She chased his lips, catching them with hers for a longer kiss, a sensation she missed every waking moment of her endless days.

The light erupted around them, too bright for her to see him, but she looked anyway, and she reached, and she called for him as he faded away.

…

“Ben!” Rey screamed, jerking upright and sending the text she’d had in her lap flying. She cursed, diving after the book and praying the weak, wilted pages hadn’t torn in her mistreatment. Luckily, they seemed completely fine. Significantly stronger than they looked.

BB-8 beeped curiously at her as she took in her surroundings. It was black outside, the moons that normally cast plenty of light obstructed by low-hanging clouds. The lanterns were all dulled, the batteries beginning to run low, being on far longer than they were designed without a break. She turned two of the three off, carefully stacking the texts and putting them away.

BB-8 beeped again, and Rey took a slow breath as she led both droids to her quarters to power down.

“Just someone I used to know,” Rey said with a shrug. “I must’ve been dreaming about him.”

“You don’t remember?” D-O asked, and Rey pursed her lips. Her palm thumped curiously, and she looked down at her hand, trying to shake the foreign sensation. Like a slow drum was beating beneath her skin.

“No, I don’t remember,” she said absently. “Let’s go to bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With the holidays over, I'm really hoping to get on an actual updating schedule. But, y'know, things are never that simple, are they?
> 
> Any of my returning readers from Constellations of You, my post-TLJ fic, I want to extend a formal apology - that fic was updated twice a week like clockwork until I finished it. This one is sporadic and sad lmfao. But in my defense, I had like 130k words of that one already written before I even started posting it.
> 
> I'll be working on this more thoroughly now that the nightmare of Christmas and New Years is over (my best friend came to visit me from San Diego and it was honestly so much fun). So once I have a set day that I wanna update, I'll let you guys know <3
> 
> Thank you all for bearing with me.
> 
> Let me know what you think of the new chapter!


	4. Memories

The next morning starts later than she’s accustomed, the mixture of removing the alarm she’d installed in BB-8 and what was apparently a late night eating much of her morning. The suns have fully risen when she finally forces herself out of bed and into the kitchen for a cup of caf. D-O and BB-8 have already started their days, carefully working through repairing the electrical system of the homestead once more.

Rey feels little drive to perform her usual duties. She empties the filtration device, setting aside the day’s water as her breakfast heats up on the small stove she’d bartered for and repaired. Any of the appliances left by Luke’s aunt and uncle were too far past deterioration to refurbish, but all of them had useful parts still intact, most of which were now set aside in the small room she’d dubbed a workshop.

The day previous – the argument with Poe, repairing the  _ Falcon _ – was proving more emotionally taxing than she’d wanted to believe, a few hours of the day already washed down a drain, never to get back, before she even dons suitable outdoor clothes rather than pajamas.

L ightsaber training takes precedence, the lanterns she’d strung together the day before packed neatly into the basket of her speeder, not forgotten but not pertinent at this moment. Whatever was waiting for her in that cave would be there tomorrow, she mused as she practiced forms with her blade.

It was in these moments that her connection to Ben still felt tangible. The lessons she’d skimmed from his mind proving most useful during her practice sessions, and sometimes it almost seemed as if he was correcting her forms, widening her stance for her, pulling her shoulders back for a wider swing, a stronger angle.

Luke had watched her, back on the island, as she went through forms with that heirloom lightsaber. He’d not said anything until much later, when she’d been sitting beside a fire she’d built in the Lars courtyard her first week alone on Tatooine, but that displaced fear he felt toward training her had increased exponentially upon spying her self-training.

“You moved just like him,” Luke had admitted, shaking his head, the ethereal blue of his energy contrasting starkly with the warm colors cast by the fire. “Every swing, the way you handled the sword, the way you lunged. An exact replication of Ben from eons ago, when I called him my padawan. It was uncanny.”

“It was our bond,” she admitted out loud for the first time to anyone. That Ben Solo had been in her head for more than a year, making a nest in the back of her mind, coming to her through space and time whenever the Force wanted to prove its sense of humor. “He took my memories, and in turn, I got his fighting style.”

“An odd trade,” Luke had laughed. At the time, she’d smiled back.

“But fitting, nonetheless.” He’d been a scholar, after all. Always scouring the galaxy for new information. And she almost always attacked first.

She’d asked Luke, later that night, if he knew why Ben hadn’t come to see her. Luke had tapped his nose twice, shrugged, and disappeared before she could yell at him for being vague and cryptic again.

Now, as she moved through her forms, allowing Ben’s lessons to flow into her muscles, she swore she could almost  _ hear _ Luke, a different Luke from a different time, interrupting her self-imposed practices to guide and offer alternatives when something didn’t feel right. 

Parrying against an unseen attack, Rey skidded through the sand, focusing on her breathing, using her own momentum to carry her through her next attack before pulling up to defend.

This would be easier with a partner. Unwittingly, her mind is transported to Kef Bir, a far different scene expanding around her. Ocean water thundered in waves, crashing against the forgotten ruins of a planet destroyer. She slipped not in sand, but on the drenched metal of a ship lost to the elements, half-buried in the sea. Seawater pelted her skin, splashing up from the tide in glorious billows and cooling the sweat worked over her face and chest from the unstable battle.

_ The only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me. _

How angry she’d been, when he’d crushed that wayfinder with his bare hands, obliterating her chances of finding the planet that rippled with darkness in the Force. She’d lunged for him, and it took so long for him to actually activate his saber, to fight back.

The indication was there. She was just far too stubborn to see it.

Now, that saber crackled against her own, the unstable red blade dancing wildly against her cool, unmarred yellow. A mixture of reality and a memory, the final battle with him where she was finally able to admit what had been eating at her for so long.

_ I did want to take your hand. Ben’s hand. _

It was Leia that unknowingly gave her strength to finally confess the truth. Feeling the way her Master passed, a shockwave across the galaxy that pained her but nearly consumed him.

She hadn’t known Ben’s name had been Leia’s last utterance until she caught his thoughts across the bond. Until she’d put her Force into him, then turned and fled, the way she always fled from him. Until he’d watched her climb into his ship and done nothing to stop her, uncaring that she’d stranded him there.

_ She called… for me. _

Rey had looked at him from the cockpit of the  _ Silencer _ , all disbelief and pain and awe, and seen Ben Solo where Kylo Ren had stood just moments before. She’d reached for him, in her mind, giving him one last thing before hurtling that beautiful, terrifying ship into the sky toward Ahch-To.

_ Of course she did. She loves you. _

She’s certain it was the first time in a very long time he truly believed that.

Twirling, dodging an unseen saber, jumping away from the onslaught of powerful attacks that almost felt real. Her arms shook with the weight he bore down, her legs burned with the effort to leap away, her breath came out in pants as she defended and attacked, over and over, a perfectly choreographed dance that would have extended until the end of time, until the sun in that quadrant of the galaxy burned too bright and swallowed every planet and moon in the system. She could almost feel the burn of his blood-red blade against her face as they clashed in a shower of sparks.

_ That saber is gone _ .

Rey stumbled back, choking on her next breath as she fell into warm sand, not icy metal. Her lightsaber fell to one side, extinguished, forgotten as a shroud of impossibility settled on her shoulders.

…  _ Ben? _

_ I threw it into the ocean. _

Suddenly her vision was filled, obstructing the sand and the sky, transporting her back to that overcast, watery planet again, not of her own volition. The disconnect from her fabricated spar session with Ben didn’t exist here - she was  _ engulfed  _ in this world, this recollection, the warm reality of Tatooine’s twin suns ripped from her, encasing her body in the drenched cold of Kef Bir.

She stands next to Ben -  _ Ben, alive, cold and shivering _ \- a ghost, a vision he cannot see, as he stares out over the calming ocean at the spot where his  _ Silencer _ had carried her away again. His heart aches, she can  _ feel it _ as though it beats in her own chest. The way the cracks splinter, Kylo Ren slowly bleeding out through the gaps in his chest that his mother left behind. The scars of his psyche healing with the scars of his body. Each inhale causing his lungs to burn with the sheer power of will it was taking to remain standing.

_ Mom is gone. _

_ Rey is gone. _

_ What do I have left? _

“Hey, kid.”

Rey startled just as Ben did, both of them turning at the same time to look at the owner of such a familiar voice. The voice of a person Rey hadn’t allowed herself to think about, simply because it hurt too much.

She’d reconciled Ben’s murder of his father in her mind as an act performed by Kylo Ren. It was easier to disconnect the two, especially after being in his head and  _ seeing  _ the manipulation and utter horror Ben had experienced at the hands of Palpatine. And she’d forgiven both Ben and Kylo Ren for the deed, because she saw how it affected him, how it  _ ripped him apart _ from the inside out.

But still, seeing Han now, almost as real as Ben in this odd mirage, a place between her present and his past, made her throat close as tears pricked in her eyes.

“You’re not real,” Ben gasped. “You’re just a memory.”

“Your memory,” Han retorted. He searched Ben’s eyes, that same crooked grin that Ben had flashed her on his face. “I miss you, son.”

She felt Ben’s heart stutter, felt the slow warmth he felt at an admission he’d never get, not truly, yet still craved with every fiber of his being. Even when the darkness he’d surrendered to fought hard against it, trying to shove back, to cling to Ben’s bones as it drained out of him like fluid, like blood. “Your son is dead.”

Rey knew this conversation. She’d borne witness to it, in another lifetime, standing on an oversee at Starkiller and watching in steadily-increasing horror as someone she wanted desperately to consider a hero interacted with the enemy. She’d not heard the words exchanged, too far away, but she’d  _ felt  _ it, when the Force connected them across lightyears and she screamed at him for killing his father.

Han smirked. “Kylo Ren is dead. My son is alive.”

Desperation clawed at Ben’s heart in her chest, beating wildly because  _ yes, yes, please, let this be true. _ She pursed her lips, taking in a shaking breath at the same moment Ben did.

_ Let me be free. _

“Come home,” Han said softly, and Rey couldn’t contain the tears now. Ben’s lip quivered, trying to hold back his own emotion, as Han looked at him with nothing but absolute devotion.

“She’s gone,” he countered weakly, the pain rearing anew in his chest, knowing that his mother was no longer of this life, and Han sighed.

"Your mother is gone,” he agreed. “But what she stood for, what she  _ fought  _ for, that’s not gone.”

_ Rey _ , he thought, a whisper into her mind. That even now, as he faced his haunted past, he thought of her made her chest constrict completely separate of the way his heart broke. Her own pain doubled against his, feeling both, two hearts beating in her chest, breaking simultaneously.

“I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.” His words were choked, caught in his throat as he forced them out, and she saw in his mind the last time he’d uttered that sentence, just before the scarlet of his saber came protruding out of his father’s back. How the phantom pain had been immediate, how badly he wished he could reverse time in that moment.

Han brought his hand up, laying it carefully against his son’s cheek, an exact replica of a darker time in a past she’d rather forget. They stood like that for a moment, Ben searching for the capacity to let it all go in his father’s eyes. “You do,” he whispered definitively, and Ben’s expression broke, becoming immeasurably sad before hardening with resolve.

“Dad,” he gasped, and Rey gasped, as well, clutching at her chest, grief catapulting her heart into her throat as she choked back a sob. Ben shuddered a breath, his lips quivering like he wanted to say more, like he wanted to prolong this moment forever. Wanted to apologize a thousand times, but nothing seemed adequate, nothing could convey the depth of his guilt; nothing except--

_I_ _ love you _ .

“I know,” Han smiled, responding to Ben’s unspoken admission, whether he heard it in Ben’s mind or just  _ knew _ , they couldn’t be certain. Didn’t care, not really.

Spinning on his heel, Ben pulled back and hurled the hilt of his saber into the ocean with as much strength as he could muster. It flew through the air, undoubtedly hitting the the water with a low splash before sinking, never to be seen again, but Ben didn’t bother watching to see. He turned, still looking for his father’s gratification.

He was alone.

Determination cut through the disappointment before it could flare to life, and Ben strided away with a newfound purpose.

Rey gasped back into herself all at once, hurtling forward and only barely catching herself on her hands. Her cheeks were sticky with drying tears, her throat dry as though she’d been screaming.

Maybe she had been. Her voice lost in the endless desert around them.

Arms shaking beneath her weight, she rolled and collapsed onto her back, closing her eyes against the twin suns and taking a few moments to just  _ breathe _ . The air stuttered and skipped through her breast for too-long seconds, until the trembling of her chest quieted and she was able to take a full inhale. It expanded in her aching lungs, and her chest felt as though it might tear apart with the sheer weight of her experience.

Of  _ Ben’s  _ experience.

“Ben,” she whispered, as though saying his name aloud might pull him back to her. Might allow her to  _ keep him _ . But the blank space in the back of her mind echoed emptily, reinstating the notion that she was very much alone out here in this vast desert.

“Not Ben,” a voice above her head spoke, and Rey startled, sitting up so fast her head spun. “But close enough.”

Rey grinned, scrambling to her knees and opening her arms. The pirate queen embraced her, familiar weathered orange skin a beacon in the dark of the suns under which she’d found herself.

“Maz,” Rey breathed, hugging the small humanoid tighter. “What a surprise!”

“Not as much of a surprise as wherever it is that you just went,” Maz responded, pulling back to look at Rey. She narrowed her eyes for a moment, studying, adjusting her signature goggles until her eyes were comically large, and Rey couldn’t help but shrink back just a bit. No matter how much she saw Maz, the impending scrutiny always made her uncomfortable. “Where did you travel to, alone in the middle of all this sand?”

The ache in her chest was beginning to fade, a dull throbbing sensation that stuck to her breastbone, not quite ready to dissipate. Like an old bruise she couldn’t stop pressing, just to feel that odd, half-numb pain as a reminder that she was still alive.

Rey stood, wiping the sand from her robes. Maz matched her stride, despite her small stature, keeping up easily with Rey’s long legs. They started in relative silence, Maz’s curiosity nearly palpable in the afternoon breeze. Wherever she’d gone, clearly the Force-sensitive had felt it.

“It was a memory,” she finally responded, reliving Han’s comfort and Ben’s distraught. “Just not my own.”

“Ben’s,” Maz said knowingly, and Rey nodded, no longer wanting to deny herself the pleasure of reveling in something so special, so unique. Something that belonged to her and Ben, no matter where he was now. “How peculiar.”

Rey said nothing, not wanting to give away just how  _ natural _ it felt to be so absorbed in him, to have him so entangled in her.

“I knew something was different about you, when you dragged the  _ Falcon _ to Takodana after Crait and the Resistance took refuge in my forest.” Maz looked at her knowingly. “You met Ben before that.”

It was so incredibly odd, to discuss her tumultuous beginning with Ben. Awkward, even.  _ Yes, he kidnapped me in order to steal information from my head and it backfired tremendously but it’s okay because we killed his Master later and I sort of fell in love with him. _

“Snoke -  _ Palpatine _ \- opened some type of connection in our heads, bridged us somehow through the Force.”

Maz stopped, tugging on Rey’s hand so she would do the same. Her eyes were narrowed, brow furrowed as she studied Rey for a long, torturous moment.

“You honestly believe that, don’t you?” Rey stared at the small humanoid, confused.

“That’s what he told us,” she admitted. “In the throne room on the  _ Supremacy _ .”

“I’m sure he did tell you that,” she countered,  _ tsk _ ing and shaking her head. “Riddle me this: Do you  _ honestly _ believe the likes of Palpatine could create something as incredibly special through the Force as your bond with Ben Solo?”

Rey hadn’t considered that. She’d accepted most of what Snoke had said in that burning room at face value, with no real reason to consider the possibility that he may have been lying to them.

But it would be another facet of control, wouldn’t it? That the monster may have peeked into Ben’s head, saw the string that tethered them together, and capitalized on it to keep Ben under his thumb. 

Perhaps to make him angry enough to kill Snoke.

“Killing your Master is a step toward becoming a Sith,” Rey breathed, recalling something she’d read in the second volume of the  _ Aionomica _ , one of the texts from Ahch-To. “Even when we didn’t know it was Palpatine, we were playing into his game.”

“He saw something he didn’t recognize and used it against you,” Maz nodded solemnly, “but your bond with Ben is  _ yours _ . Don’t let that creature tarnish that with lies.”

“Ben told me that we are -  _ were -  _ a dyad in the Force. Something that hadn’t been seen in generations.”  _ Two halves of a whole. _ The thought ached, a scarred, throbbing wound in her heart. A blade she wasn’t ready to extract, not yet.

Maz raised a brow at Rey’s corrective tense, pursing her lips. “Much smarter than his father, that boy is.” Rey couldn’t help but chuckle, leading Maz down the stairs of her homestead. “Nearly as reckless, though.”

They stopped in the kitchen, Rey pulling the teapot from the cupboard above the wash basin. She filtered her farmed water, adding it to the pot and setting on the stovetop to boil.

“What do you think bonded us, then?” she asked, trying to maintain an air of aloofness even as the question burned her throat on the way out.

Maz hummed noncommittally before shrugging. “I believe you know the answer to that question.” Rey stood with her back to the smaller woman, her shoulders tense with understanding she wasn’t sure how to comprehend. Because she  _ did  _ know, didn’t she? Where that bond had come from.

Rey’s ability to connect with the Force had been shrouded, a thin veil covering it for most of her life. Undetectable, were someone looking for it, for  _ her _ . Suppressed might be the best term, like someone had folded her power into a neat little package and stuck it beneath the heaviest boulder they could find. Hiding her from the rest of the galaxy, to grow up in an unforgiving wasteland, to grow old and gray, until she collapsed under the heat of the suns and the weight of the salvage on her back, her skin and organs turning to dust until she was nothing but bones in a forgotten, unmarked grave.

I n her parent’s eyes, that had been a preferable fate to becoming Palpatine’s Sith vessel.

B ut the Force was unwilling to allow her such a mundane existence. It pulled at the strings of her life, her anonymity, thrusting BB-8 into her path, leading her to Finn, to the  _ Falcon _ , to Han and Chewie, and finally to--

Him.

When he’d forced his way into her mind, he’d unknowingly shattered that boulder, blowing it away like powder in a light breeze, allowing that neatly-wrapped package to unfold and grow and expand until it measured up to where it was meant to be, after all those years buried within her. Until it stretched across her entire being, molding to every facet of her existence the way it should have been all along.

_ Something inside me has always been there. _

The Force.  


_ But now it’s awake _ .  


The bond.

_ And I'm afraid. _

Ben.

“You’re beginning to see,” Maz said carefully, sipping the tea Rey hadn’t even realized she’d concluded preparing. She stared at the smaller woman. “The Force is so fickle a thing, don’t you agree? It has to have its way. Like a child on the verge of a tantrum.”

Rey leaned against the counter, her eyes flicking between Maz and the floor beneath her feet, contemplating what she’s always known, but didn’t know how to accept.

Ben’s placement in her life wasn’t chance. It was an inevitability. Fated and strung together by the Force, twisting between and around them until they were knotted irreversibly. Irrevocably. A permanence never before allowed to her, her young life wrought with far too many departures.

The only consistency had been the knowledge that getting close to people was a mistake. People would leave.

“But Ben is gone,” she whispers, the words stinging her throat on their way out, an absolution she needed to bear, even when it felt imposible. Even when the weight threatened to crush and consume her, swallow her into the inky void in her mind where Ben once resided.

Maz sipped her tea quietly, swinging her feet merrily where she sat at Rey’s kitchen table. “Do you remember what I told you when we first met?” she asked after a while, reaching over and adding another cube of sugar to her tea. The spoon clinked quietly against the inside of the clay mug, a homemade remnant left behind by Luke’s aunt and uncle.

“You told me a lot of things when we first met,” Rey responded lamely. Maz nodded knowingly.

“Right, right,” she waved Rey’s statement off. “However, if you recall, I told you that whomever you were waiting for on Jakku wasn’t coming back for you.” Rey swallowed, nodding, that wound still not quite healed itself. That her parents, whom she’d waited for at least fourteen years, were gone forever. Maz took no notice of the lump in Rey’s throat. “But that there was someone who still could.”

“Luke,” Rey answered immediately, confusion clear on her face and in her tone. “That was just before I went to Ahch-To to find Luke.”

Maz carefully set her mug on the table, leaning back in the chair with her arms crossed. She gave Rey a knowing look, and something in Rey’s chest bubbled with anticipation as Maz smirked.

“I never said Luke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not saying anything definitive YET, but I'm thinking updates are going to start coming on Sundays.
> 
> Sunday acts as my Saturday, and that gives me a lot of time during my work week to, y'know, not work.
> 
> (This update is brought to you by makeshiftcandy, who is, in fact, at work right now).
> 
> Let me know what you guys think!
> 
> Also sorry if the conversation between Ben and Han is not accurate - I've only seen the movie twice because I do not like it. (I'd seen TLJ in theaters six times by this time when it came out.)


	5. Into the Unknown

Maz doesn’t stay the night, despite Rey’s insistence. Apparently, Lando and Chewie would be picking her up in Mos Eisley the next day, and she wanted to check out some of the local watering holes. She assured Rey that they’d stop by when they were done with their next job - the likes of which she wasn’t apt to discuss - so Chewie could visit with yet another human he’d apparently adopted. But she had some business to tend to in the city.

“The design I used for my cantina was stolen by some nimrod on this planet,” she explained as she packed her speeder. “I have to go find him and knock him around a bit as payback.”

Maz had given her a long look then, as she climbed onto her speeder - that Rey couldn’t be sure wasn’t stolen - eyes narrowed in concentration as they roved over Rey’s face, flitting back and forth between her eyes. “How have your dreams been, child?”

Rey stepped back unconsciously, the question hitting her between her lungs without any real understanding as to why. What a strange, unprompted inquiry. But then, Maz seemed the type to  _ know _ things, her facade nearly as cryptic as that of Master Luke, alive or dead. If she was asking, there was almost absolutely a reason.

“I haven’t dreamt in months,” Rey admitted quietly. “Since… Since Exegol.”

_ Since Ben _ , she doesn’t say, but Maz seems to understand regardless.

“You used to, didn’t you?” It’s not really a question.

“When I lived on Jakku,” she affirms. “I dreamt often about an island, set in an ocean. It turned out to be the place where I found Master Luke later.”

Ahch-To, the island of her dreams.

And her nightmares.

_ Late at night. _

“Mmm,” Maz acknowledges, crossing her ankles over one side of the speeder, her and Rey suddenly the same height. “And after that?”

_ Desperate to sleep. _

“Nightmares, mostly,” she responded, glancing into the sand as though it might hold answers. Answers to questions she didn’t know she was asking. “Of voices, trying to tempt me into darkness. And that darkness was a… a physical place, shrouded in a fog so dense, I couldn’t see through it. But the voices never changed.”

“What did they say?”

_ I see it. _

“I can’t remember,” she says honestly. “I just remember that they were… very persuasive.” Sometimes, she wondered if they were her dreams at all. Or if they were some cosmic mix of her and Ben’s deepest fears, mangled together across the distance to croon fearful mutterings of a life neither of them could comprehend. A life of a throne, of the Sith.

“How often did you dream before?”

“Nearly every night on Jakku,” she says honestly. “Unless I was too exhausted. And most nights after that, I suppose.”

“But nothing for months?” Maz pressed, and Rey’s brow pinched, trying to understand where Maz was trying to lead her with this line of questioning.

“I guess there’s nothing else for the Force to show me?” She doesn’t mean to phrase it as a question, but the knowing look in Maz’s eyes is all Rey needs to know she failed spectacularly.

“Just keep that in mind for a little while, would you?” With that, Maz kicked the speeder awake, rushing away in a small cloud of dust toward the city hub of Tatooine.

She spends the rest of the night mulling over Maz’s words, stuck on a particular section of the  _ Rammahgon _ , where Luke was explaining his process for tracking Exegol, but most of it went over her head. After reading the same sentence for the eighth time, she sighed deeply, standing to stretch. BB-8 and D-O spun around and between her legs, whirring excitedly as she double-checked her speeder to make sure it was stocked for the following day’s trip. 

As she dressed down for the night, discarding her clothes for the light, airy material she’d sewn together haphazardly and dubbed pajamas, she carefully peeled away her arm wraps, taking a moment before unbinding the scar on her arm from the leather cuff she’d donned in the wake of Crait.

That first day, once the wound had been properly cleaned and dressed, she’d thought little of it. The med droid who tended to her had said that the type of weapon used against her was odd - it had singed her nerves, completely burning the tissue in the affected area, and it would leave a scar no matter how much bacta they applied. Rey had waved off the bacta - the Resistance had had such a short supply at the time, and a slew of people who needed it far more than her little flesh wound.

Once the bandages had come off, she’d been sitting beside Rose in the infirmary as she grimaced through getting her leg wounds redressed after ‘saving Finn’s sorry, ungrateful ass’, as she’d put it.

She’d glanced at Rey’s arm, marveling for a moment at the strange shape of the scar, asking about the weapon that had inflicted it.

“I’ve never seen a blade that cut so strangely,” she’d said.

“They were designed to withstand a lightsaber,” Rey explained with a light chuckle.

“No, I mean,” Rose reached out, slowly tracing both halves of the new pink flesh above the actual skin, drawing the design in the air, “the shape is so odd. It looks like two hands reaching toward each other.”

She’d nearly toppled, right there in the infirmary. Rose had simply smiled and turned to discuss the progress of her healing wounds with the staff doctor, but Rey’s entire world had threatened to implode.

Because of course. Of course it would be a symbol - the Force was not kind enough to afford her such a thing as a simple scar. It  _ had _ to be a representation of something, had to remind her every time she looked at it of where it had come from, what had  _ prompted _ the series of events that led to that scar. The irony of the symbolism was not lost.

Meeting under the cover of a honeycomb hut, scarcely warmed by the raging fire, on a foreign world while rain thundered just outside. Soft, quiet whispers. The way his voice had dropped to something comforting, something sacred. The way he’d  _ looked  _ at her, seeing everything down to the very makeup of her atoms as they built an organic lifeform around them, and still wanting to dig deeper. The understanding in his tone.

Promises made with broken voices.

Outstretched hands.

The first touch of his skin against hers.

The reminder of her hope, her  _ failure _ , had been too painful, and she’d fabricated a band from an old belt she’d found on board the  _ Falcon _ , shoving that memory into an unseen crevice with all the rest that she wasn’t ready to face.

Now, it was a reminder of  _ what if. _ _ What if _ she’d joined Ben, taken his hand in that throne room and run the First Order with him.  _ What if _ she’d stood beside him as his equal, his partner.  _ What if _ she’d spent that last year with him, instead of against him.

Or,  _ what if  _ he’d come with her. Redeeming himself not on Exegol, but in that throne room, slicing Snoke in half, demolishing the First Order hierarchy from the inside out.  _ What if  _ he’d come to Crait with her, not as Kylo Ren but as Ben Solo, pulling himself from that pit of darkness Palpatine had thrown him into and basking once more in the light.

Would he still be alive, if either of them had made a different decision?

It was too painful to dwell on now. So the scar remained buried in the back of her mind, until nightfall, when she dressed down, unable to help taking a moment to caress the raised skin, to marvel at the feel of the odd, tingling flesh where her nerves died.

To  _ remember _ .

She lies down that night with the thought of outstretched hands and warm fires behind her eyes, willing any god listening to just let her  _ dream _ of him. Just to see him, even if it wasn’t real. Even if he was nothing more than a figment of her imagination. Even if it’s just a glimpse, somewhere beyond her closed eyelids, where his smile lived only in her thoughts.

When she wakes the next morning, it’s with the stabbing disappointment that her prayers once again went unanswered.

…

BB-8 beeps sheepishly as glares at him, holding the now-mostly-empty canteen in one hand with the other planted firmly on her hip.

“I  _ told _ you both to be more careful,” she admonishes the two droids, who slowly slink back, out of view of the lantern light. “If I die of dehydration because the two of you were roughhousing and you knocked my water over, you are  _ not _ allowed to use the speeder to drag my limp body back to town.  _ And _ you’ll have to be the ones to tell Poe and Finn what happened.” BB-8 exclaimed a plea, that  _ no, no, Poe would be so disappointed in me! _ as D-O shrunk back even further, the threat clearly going much deeper than it needed to. She pulled in a slow breath, trying to dispel her anger.

“I’m sorry,” she said to both of them, crouching down so she was more level. “This has been a trying week, and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. Just,  _ please _ try and be more careful, okay?”

BB-8 beeped dismally as D-O stuttered out an apology, making Rey exhale a sigh. She looked up, the last few lanterns still laying on the ground, but most of the lights hung on the interior walls of the glyph cave. She set about propping them up, not even having turned the switch and testing the illumination in the cave.

BB-8 and D-O elected to watch quietly from one corner as she finished, communicating quietly when they thought she was out of earshot over whether they might be deconstructed for spare parts. She chuckled to herself, shaking her head as she adhered the final lantern to the wall. As though Poe would let Rey live if she took apart the loaner droid. Her body would be decaying the desert mere hours later.

Finally, the final lantern was adhered to the cavern wall, and Rey steadied herself for a long moment before walking back toward the mouth and flicking the switch before she could change her mind.

It lit up like the sun.

The runes were suddenly completely discernible, the floor completely covered, stretching toward every cavern wall like ivy. The rustic red and brown stone was carved with them, in a language she couldn’t read, depicting a narrative she’d never be able to follow without a translator. Still, she squealed happily as light finally obstructed the dismal darkness, clapping her hands together and looking down triumphantly at her two droids.

“That went better than expected!” she admitted, and BB-8 beeped a quiet expletive about his lack of belief in her. “Hey! I’m just saying, it could have not worked at all.” She took a moment, packing up her tools and loading them into her pack. “C’mon. We need Threepio to decipher this.”

The wind echoed coldly against her neck, sending goosebumps down her spine, and she turned toward the far wall.

The only wall occupied by images.

She stared at it, not even realizing her feet had drawn her closer until she had to crane her neck back to see the entirety of it. BB-8 and D-O beeped curiously, but she gestured, telling them to stay where they were.

“I recognize this,” Rey whispered to herself, her fingers trailing over the engravings. They dipped into the stone, too precise to have been chiseled but dug out of the rock wall nonetheless. Punctuated like letters onto a datapad - clean and straight somehow.

Otherworldly.

“It’s a map,” she breathed, filtering through her mind, trying to figure out where the familiarity stemmed from. The image hit her like a speeder - this, this exact thing, drawn into the texts she’d taken from Ahch-To. Once by a Jedi long dead, then again by Luke in another volume.

The Force breathed around her, alive, as she skimmed the map with her hands. Like it was waiting for something, something grand. Something only she could provide. It sighed when she pulled her hand away, studying with her eyes and willing her mind to understand.

But that was the biggest impossibility with the Force, wasn’t it? To be able to  _ see _ , when it only ever expected her to  _ feel _ .

WIth a slow exhale, she pressed both palms back to the rock, feeling the whispered breeze of the Force surround her, pulling and pushing through nonexistent airwaves in the stillness of the cave. She drew upon that well of power within her, the odd-but-comfortable mix of herself and Ben that was her new normal, and  _ pushed _ it into the rune.

It pushed back.

Gritting her teeth, Rey pressed harder, the air rushing and swirling around her, robes fluttering in a nonexistent breeze. BB-8 screeched, but Rey barely heard him, pressing more energy as it tried desperately to shove back, to kick her out. The unnatural wind gusted, Rey digging her toes into the sand and rock to keep from toppling. The cave shook, dust and debris raining down from high above her head and she fought the unseen, but it wasn’t enough. Whatever it was that fought back, it put just as much momentum into keeping her out as she did trying to push in. She inhaled slowly, closing her eyes, looking to her instinct for guidance.

An answer whispered quietly in a soft voice that tickled her ear. A voice she  _ knew _ as well as her own.

She drew further in, reaching into that vacuum in her mind, where Ben once resided. She fisted the blackness of his absence, a reflex, a  _ feeling _ , and propelled it into the wall.

The wall opened up.

She fell through.

…

Blackness.

Rey was floating, surrounded by a never-ending, colorless haze that she felt but couldn’t see. Like running her hands through a dewy fog, the perspiration sticking to her skin. But instead of wetness, it just left cold in its wake.

Then the wind whipped up again, engulfing her in that same cold, that almost-wet. She felt her body jerk, thrown, but she was so far disconnected that it didn’t matter, none of it mattered, because she was falling  _ toward  _ something, tumbling through the nothingness with the Force, not bothering to reach for anything to grapple because she was  _ safe _ , even as she plummeted.

This sensation was familiar and foreign all at once. Like falling through the rainclouds of Ahch-To, something she could imagine but not generate until this moment.

The rushing speed stopped, and Rey toppled onto the grass, blinded by the sudden light that flicked on like a switch. Like someone finally yanked the blindfold from around her eyes, her midnight turning to noon all at once.

Blinking against the harsh light, Rey took a cursory glance around, the odd familiarity of this place settling like a weight in her chest. Panting, she studied the vibrancy, the too-bright greens settled against the pops of various wildflowers in a rainbow of color. The sky above was too bright, completely white, the entire thing a sun-reflected cloud.

_ This isn’t right, _ is the first thought that crosses her mind. This wasn’t what she knew to expect, though she had no idea  _ what _ to expect, if not this.

Something tugged on her chest, an invisible tether that pulled. She took another moment to observe the odd, abnormal forest, but the yanking was insistent, and Rey followed it blindly.

It pulled like an impatient animal on a leash, until Rey was jogging, and then running, following a trail her feet seemed to know well, jumping over tree roots and large rocks like muscle memory, her next step known before it’s taken.

And then the Force pulsed, swallowing the sound around her in a vacuum, that emptiness in the back of her mind brimming until it was fit to burst, and all at once Rey knew exactly where she was going.

She turned sharply at the break in the trees just as he came barrelling around the opposite corner, feet sliding in the grass, only a short meadow between them. She stumbled, catching herself on her hands before righting and closing the short distance between them he hasn’t already covered.

Nearly lifting her off the ground, his face is pressed into her hair and his arms around her waist. He knocks the breath for her chest with how her grabs her, how he squeezes, and she can’t find it in her to care, because he’s  _ here, he’s real, he’s been here all along-- _

“Ben,” she sobs, her fingertips digging into the meat of his shoulders, clutching, bowing her back to keep him pressed as tightly to her as possible. Like he’ll disappear if she doesn’t put everything into holding him in this moment.

“Rey,” he breathes in response, and she could listen to nothing but his voice for the rest of her life without sacrifice. He squeezes even tighter, and Rey lets out a shaky exhale, blinking away the tears in her eyes even as her lip quivers. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She pauses, and he feels the hitch in her lungs, the way she pulls back slightly, causing him to grasp even tighter, keeping her pressed against him.

“It’s not safe,” he clarifies, shaking his head. “If something happened - if you got  _ stuck _ \--”

“Ben,” she interrupted, her fingers carding through the hair at the base of his neck, reveling in the silky texture, the softness and dreamlike quality he possessed. “ _ Just be with me. _ ”

He shuddered through a breath, and they fell to their knees together, one entity in two bodies. The way they used to move together, when they fought side-by-side. One being with two minds. His hands shook where they pressed against her spine, his breathing labored like he was taking his first inhale, over and over.

Warm skin. A scent she recognized - woodsy and smokey, like a bonfire on Ajan Kloss when the Resistance hunkered down there. Big hands, spanning her back almost in its entirety. A solid form, every intake of breath pressing against her chest as his lungs expanded.

_ Real. _

“You’re here,” she said, disbelief evident in her tone. “You’re  _ with me. _ ”

Ben huffed, a choked sound that tried valiantly to be a laugh. “I never went far.”

That resonated somewhere deep within her, dredging through her muddled mind like driftwood through mud. It took a long minute of searching, but she gasped as the images suddenly flooded her mind - them, both of them, in this exact spot, over and over, reintroducing her to this realm where he now dwells, the displacement when she comes alive the next day with no recollection.

Every night, one after the other, his heart breaking with every recurrence, because  _ she’s here, she’s here, but she can’t remember, she doesn’t know-- _

“ _ No _ ,” she choked, finally pulling far enough back to  _ look at him _ , his face, his  _ eyes _ as they burned with every passion she felt in her bones. “Every day?”

“It didn’t matter,” he responded quickly, his hands coming up to cup her cheeks, brushing loose tendrils of hair back and tucking them behind her ears. “I stopped caring that you didn’t know. I only cared that you came.”

Her heart cracked, beating in her chest as though it could tear its way out. What would that be like, to see him  _ every day _ , knowing he wouldn’t remember that he’d just been there? What conversations were lost to time? What had she surrendered, buried in the caverns of her soul? How many moments were forfeited to her own foolishness?

“Don’t,” he interrupted, seeing her train of thought as it rushed toward an inevitable collision. He tilted her chin up, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Don’t dwell. Just be with me.”

An echo of her sentiment. The Force resonated around them, rippling like a pebble skipped into a pond, and Rey reached for him at the same moment Ben swooped down, lips pressing together in perfect synchronization.

It was nearly consummate. They were molded, fitting together like puzzle pieces, two halves of a whole finally locked together. But there was an echoed dissonance, a feeling in the vibrancy of his skin against hers - that they were here,  _ together _ , but also not. Within whatever plane he existed, it was not a place she was supposed to be.

So she kissed him harder, and hugged him tighter, and thanked whatever unknown celestial that bound them and allowed them to be together.

Even if it was temporary.

“How are you here?” he asked, reluctantly spacing their bodies so that they could each take a moment to breathe, no matter how it felt like an immolation.

“The runes,” she responded. “On the wall, in the cave.” He gave her a curious look, but she was too exalted to read into it. “I pressed into them, and they let me through.” Ben is shaking his head, brow furrowed.

“Rey,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers, and the way he said her name made gooseflesh erupt down her spine. She pursed her lips against his inevitable backlash. “You are not meant to be here. This place - it doesn’t adhere to the standards of the living world. You’re not safe.”

“I’m here every night,” she argues, her eyes sliding shut, reveling in the sensation of his touch.

“Not  _ you _ ,” he responds patiently, and she shouldn’t be so taken aback by the softness of his tone - she’s heard it a thousand times, speaking like they were sharing secrets. But he’d always sounded so genuine, if a little abrasive, when they spoke in person. Now, though,  _ now--  _ “Your Force, your energy. Never you.”

Speech feels lost, a distant and unnecessary proposition as they sway like a gentle breeze. His hand falls to the side of her neck, the other tangling in her hair, keeping her secured to him even as he insists she’s in some type of danger.

Time is relative here. It passes by all at once, not at all, the hands of the clock stilling completely and circling uncontrollably. It’s seconds, decades later that he moves, pressing his lips to her forehead. That he extracts himself from her embrace as she fists her hands in his tunic, the prospect of letting go too much to bear.

“Rey.” That same soft, exasperated tone. “Cyar’ika, please.”

“Come with me,” she begs, looking up at him. Lost, endlessly sad eyes meet her own, an infinitely fervent, profound brown the color of Corellian whiskey. They radiated a warmth deeper than comprehension, an indescribably solicitous feeling making home in her chest, attempting to cast out the beast that had made home there as it slept.

“You know I can’t,” he says, and she can feel her heart chip away a little bit more. “I  _ died _ , Rey. I’m not able to return to--”

“I still cannot  _ believe _ you did that,” she interrupts, anger flaring to life all at once, the echo of rage that she’d felt not long after burying the heirloom saber alongside its sister in the sand rearing up in a furious screech, lighting her skin on fire. She’d spent days tearing apart the desert, screaming into the heavens about how  _ utterly, inconceivably wrong _ it was that she’d lived and he’d not. Causing a lot of unnecessary distress to BB-8 and D-O. She pulls away, wrenching herself from his embrace and standing. “How  _ dare  _ you, Ben? How  _ dare  _ you give your life for mine?”

The sigh that escapes his lip is weary, as though this argument is tired, exhausting him before it’s really even begun. And maybe it is, maybe they’ve had it a thousand times already, but Rey cannot remember, and the wound of losing him cuts her once more, sinking talons into her flesh, the monster within her chest roaring to life and tearing her apart from the inside out. He stands, as well.

“Rey, I--”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “No, you listen. You were there, and then you weren’t! I didn’t get the chance to - to step in, to do  _ anything _ ! You faded so fast, and I couldn’t  _ do anything!  _ You just disappeared, and if I’d blinked I would have missed you!” She balls her shaking fists her hands desperate to reach out, to feel the warmth of his skin on hers. Ben rears back, putting a half-foot of distance between them that may as well be a crater, the way his absence tears across her flesh like a speeder through the desert.

“You were dead,” he says back, mirroring her fury quietly as it climbed higher and higher, reaching toward that too-white sky, threatening to turn it red. “I felt you die! I felt your life force slip away! I have never felt so helpless, and  _ no one _ came to help me. I did the only thing that I could!”

“You  _ left _ me!” she screams back, and he jerks like she’d slapped him in the face. “You  _ promised  _ me I wasn’t alone and then you  _ left! _ ”

“I lost you! You were gone, just like that! Do you have any idea what that feels like?”

_ “I know exactly what that feels like!” _ The tears burn as they stream down her face, scarring her cheeks as they drip down her jaw and water the grass below. “The difference is that I have to  _ live  _ with the fact that you’re  _ gone because of me _ !”

Ben takes a slow, deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before they open and train on her face. The anger that lit them just a moment ago drains away like water down the rusted pipes of her Tatooine hovel, until nothing but longing and dejection fill his eyes.

“Rey, please,” he implores, closing the distance between them once more and taking her hands in his. “I’m sorry. I can’t-- You’re here, you’re standing in front of me,  _ real _ , and all I can think about is what would happen if you got stuck.”

Her jaw trembled with the crushing weight of her emotion. She allowed him to draw her back to his chest, letting his tunic soak up the remnants of her tears.

“I lost you once,” he continued carefully, his fingertips tracing the ridges of her spine, soothing her as she struggled to control her inclination toward anger. “I cannot bear the thought of losing you again.”

“How do I get you back, if not this way?” she whispers against his chest, his body going rigid against her. “How do I find you?”

“You don’t,” he explains carefully. “Rey, I sent you to the texts so you could break the bond, not so you could bring me back.”

“The texts?” she asks, something odd clouding her head. A sensation that crept up her spine like spider legs, making her entire body convulse. “No, you sent me to the wall.” He shakes his head, but she continues before he can say more. “I  _ saw  _ you, Ben. You pointed the wall out to me - that’s how I found this place. You were there.”

His jaw works, eyes scouting between hers, to the ground, as though an answer might sprout like flowers in the soil beneath their feet.

“Rey, I can’t--”

The world tilts all at once, falling to one side so quickly Rey’s stomach plummets to her feet. She careens one way, and Ben is shouting, grabbing her and wrapping her in his arms. He’s saying something, but there’s roaring in her ears, a thundering as the world around them quakes, and she doesn’t understand how he is able to remain upright, and why he can’t seem to hear the noise, and--

Oh.

It must be her.

He lifts her, hooking an arm behind her knees to support her weight, and  _ sprints _ back toward the way she’d come, ducking through the seemingly endless number of trees and continuing to yell things that she had no possible way of grasping.

FInally, the surroundings broke to something more familiar, and Rey struggled against his grip, pressing her knowledge of this specific area across the bond. He nodded, carefully lowering her to her feet while continuing to support her weight completely.

“Where?” he asked, and she pointed weakly, a rough estimate of where she’d broken through. Why was she so weak? Where had all her energy gone? It felt like years of exhaustion were piled onto her shoulders, suffocating her beneath layers of ignored sleepless nights until it all toppled.

“What’s happening?” she asked, her voice breathless, standing even with him bearing the vast majority of her weight posing to be too difficult.

“Being here is sucking your energy dry,” he explained, looking for the break in thin air that would get her back to Tatooine. “You aren’t meant to be here, Rey. This place is a nexus in the Force, it’s designed to drain your energy to sustain itself.”

Something about that was erroneous, but she couldn’t voice her opinion, her vocal chords lost too deeply in her throat.

The air pulsed, interrupting the flow of the breeze in a specific fissure that stemmed from nowhere. Ben’s head whipped back and forth, like he couldn’t  _ see _ the very obvious scar in thin air.

“Here,” she forced, reaching toward it. With Ben as her crutch, she hobbled forward, until her hand was submerged in that same not-wet sensation that she’d fallen through before. It clouded, the vision of her skin becoming hazy as it passed from one plane to another.

“Alright.” His voice shook, wobbling as unsteadily as her legs. Knees shaking, knocking together as she attempted a step forward, but he caught her as the ground rushed toward her once more. “I’ve got you.”

“For now,” she murmured, not even realizing the biting tone of her voice until Ben physically flinched against her. She reached further, her entire forearm shrouded in the fog that would sustain her between this world and the next. “Come with me,” she begged again.

Ben sighed, then carefully let her go, her weight collapsing against his side as he reached his own hand toward her outstretched one. It passed through the mist without breaking through the cloud, his own arm unmarred and whole beside her unfocused limb.

“I can’t,” he whispered against her temple, and Rey felt tears cascading down her cheeks anew as she processed the vision of their extended hands, his unbroken while hers faded. “But you must. Go, Rey.” His voice cracked as his forehead dropped to her shoulder, taking in a shuddering breath. “Please.”

_ This is not our end _ , she thought vehemently, pushing it across the bond to him, the familiarity of  _ feeling _ him making her eyes overflow for an entirely different reason.  _ I will find you _ .

“Don’t,” he whispered, turning her so they faced one another. He brought his lips carefully to hers, pressing them once, twice, before pulling away like it was physically painful to do so. “Just be with me.”

And then he pushed her into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello yo whaddup my name is makeshift candy, I'll be your conductor today aboard the  
> A N G S T T R A I N  
> Please keep all feelings and emotions bottled up inside until you inevitably explode and erupt like a volcano, lashing out at your significant other/soul mate for saving your life.
> 
> This update is coming to you from the shitty Starbucks wi-fi because I cannot fathom the idea of being at home.
> 
> Also all my stuff is unbeta'd, so sorry for any mistakes!


	6. Past Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone pointed out that they loved how I matched up songs to chapters with my last fic, Constellations of You, so I'm going to try and do that for this fic going forward, as well!
> 
> So, if you're into that sort of thing, Sorry by Nothing but Thieves pairs well with this chapter.

_ Murkiness. _

_ An odd, near-wet sensation of cold creeping between bones, hidden facets uncovered, no space left untouched by the alien feeling. Invading every sense until there was nothing, nothing except cold and dark and empty. Writhing, though there were no obstructions, no tethers preventing movement. There was  _ nothing _ , nothing but a vast emptiness all around, a vast emptiness of the mind, and someone - someone is supposed to  _ be there _ , where is the other presence that had been a constant for so long? What happened, why did memories seem so far, lost in the expanse of the galaxy that stretched in every direction, lost while floating listlessly through time? _

_ This was wrong. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. An embrace of cold and nothing and  _ wrong _ , wrapping so tightly it threatened to suffocate, but lungs no longer existed, were no longer necessary, buried too far beneath the endlessness and the black, an inhale unnecessary, a heartbeat lost in the expanse. How did this happen, how-- _

_ “Calm down.” Pressure, like a warm hand against a forehead that was too far away. The vaguest of outlines, a shape against the backdrop of black, unable to differentiate it from the neverending blankness around. Struggling against nothing, fatigue settling into bones as the nought permeated every other facet of existence, as it seeped beneath stray skin. The flash of a memory, striking like a bolt of lightning - a face, a smile, warmth, gone, gone,  _ gone. _ “ _ Calm down _ , Ben.” _

_ … Mom? _

_ That’s not right. _

_ “No,” the voice seemed to be smiling, but he couldn’t be certain, his eyes seeing so much black he wasn’t sure they weren’t closed. “Not Leia.” _

_ Leia. _

_ Where is she? _

_ Where is Rey? _

_ T _ _ he memories returned in flashes, images lighting up the inside of his mind with joy and pain felt in their purest forms. Leia, gone, reaching for him with the last of her energy. Rey, gone, expelling a virus that plagued the galaxy for far too long. Then, not gone, reaching for her light and forcing it back into her body. _

_ A face. A smile. Warmth. _

_ Nothing. _

_ I’m dead. _

_ “Yes,” the voice answers, that same soft, patient tone. “You are.” _

_ Where? _

_ “That’s the question, isn’t it?” the voice - it’s distinctly female. She speaks with the ages, a thousand generations in her the subdued ferocity of her tone. Helpful and knowing and fiery all at once. “This place, it’s a sort of extension of both realms, while at the same time not really being either. It exists in between.” _

_ Between worlds? _

_ “Yes,” she says, and he can hear the satisfaction in her tone that he caught on so quickly. Something like pride, in a strange way, because this is not a voice he knows, and Ben has had many voices in his head over the years. He remembers this slowly, the recollections coming to him in careless waves, like the sea lapping at the shore during low tide. This voice - it would be glaringly obvious amongst all the darkness and chaos that once ransacked his mind. A balm to the torment. _

_ Like Rey once was. _

_ Rey. _

_ Where is she? _

_ T _ _ he voice does not respond, but he can feel the presence still just beside him. The figure contemplates the answer, and fear ebbs through the emptiness, a spider’s web of alarm spreading and stretching through the nothing, creeping to surround and suffocate. Did he not save her? Was his sacrifice in vain? She was alive - he knows, he looked upon her soft features, watched as they lit up with the realization that she breathed once more. Why couldn’t he sense her? Where is she? _

_ “Calm down, Ben,” the voice says again, and he once more feels that warm tension against a forehead he is not certain belongs to him. The tranquility comes without his permission, sifting against terror and blanketing it in a softness not his own. “She is safe. I promise you.” _

_ Where? _

_ I _ _ can’t feel her anymore. _

_ “You can,” she assures him. “She’s there. You must focus.” _

_ The back of his mind had never felt so hollow. It echoed desolately, her vacancy overwhelming in its absolution. She is not there, despite the affirmation of the voice. She is gone, unreachable, the Force doing him a unique unkindness in disallowing their  _

_ Maybe it would have been easier to accept had he not been thrust into this alternate plane, where the screams of her absence reverberated louder than anything else to ever fall on his ears. Maybe, if all that had come after death was darkness and Force, and his cognition had dissolved into the nexus so that Ben Solo, Kylo Ren had ceased existing completely, he might have greeted death with a warm embrace. _

_ This - knowing who and what he is, what he once was, not being able to see or hear or  _ sense _ the other half of his soul, the mate to his dyad - this was torment in its truest form. _

_ He must be in Hell. _

_ “Focus, Ben,” the voice said, once more sounding amused, cognizant of his internal struggle as Rey’s truancy threatened to rip him apart and finding something humorous in it. “Don’t look for her here - she’s not on this plane. Look for her elsewhere.” _

_ Elsewhere? _

_ What the  _ fuck  _ did that mean? _

_ Still, he reigned his energy in, stretching non-limbs to rake in whatever he could reach, until he nearly felt the conformation of his physical body. Pulling deeper still, until that energy manifested smaller and smaller, but burned brighter and brighter, aggregate Light subsisting into a smaller, incandescent form that careened into the vast emptiness in the back of his mind, where Rey had taken up residence and nested herself a home there for far too long. _

_ The void seemed neverending, complete only in the inexhaustible space, like being sucked out of an airlock and drifting aimlessly through the galaxy. Once, this place connected him to the only other being in the galaxy he felt understood him; now it stood a mausoleum of barren opportunities led astray by his own selfishness. His inability to let her go, to allow the Force to take her. _

_ Don’t go where I can’t follow. _

_ Instead he was the one who left. _

_ “Ben,” the voice chastised, and he reared back, pushing further into the expanse, searching for the familiarity of her signature. That beautiful Light that drew him in like a moth from the first moment he saw her, a hundred lifetimes ago. _

_ How far they’d come, in such a short time. And how quickly they’d burned. _

_ Something glimmered. A silvery strand of thread, floating within the swath of this empty graveyard. It stuck out like a beacon in the expanse, and he chased it, throwing himself deeper than he thought possible into the endless infinity, hurtling through black until he could reach out, until the string fell into his hand. _

_ Nonexistent wind whipped by, pulling him by the thread to which he clinged, the molecules of energy that came together and formed his lack of body forcibly hauled across the galaxy. If he could breathe, the air would have been stolen from his lungs. But such was unnecessary, and the phantom wind was like the phantom hand of the voice, and none of this was real, not really, nothing except-- _

_ Her. _

_ Her fingers were dancing methodically over the too-familiar switches in the ship she was piloting. She sat alone in the pilot’s chair once favored by his father, eons ago, before his hair was white, a small Ben on his lap as he learned the controls of a ship that would one day belong to him. The seat beside her devoid of the wookiee Ben was so accustomed to occupying it. _

_ But it wasn’t empty. _

_ How was it that this realm did not offer him a beating heart, yet it could still break beyond repair upon the realization that, folded neatly in the empty chair, was a stack of the clothes he’d lost when he’d passed into the Force? That this realm did not offer him lungs, no ability to take a breath, yet it still felt like it had been ripped from him? _

_ The  _ Falcon _ shuddered as it left hyperspace, the familiar rust-colored planet coming into view beyond the hull. He watched as she began a landing sequence, maneuvering the ship, her brow furrowed in concentration as she matched her ship’s navigational system to the small, chicken-scratch-filled scrap of paper in her hand. _

_ Coordinates. _

_ Landing, Rey took a slow, steadying breath, glancing down once at the bundle of half-destroyed cloth in the seat beside her. A hand reached out, carefully setting atop the fabric, and he  _ felt _ the tears as they pricked her eyes. _

_ “I’m supposed to let you go today,” she whispered to the bundle, fingertips grazing the loose threads. “All of you.” _

_ It was then that the two familiar silver hilts of lightsabers Ben knew well made themselves known, clattering as Rey adjusted her feet next to where they lay. She glanced down at them, blinking back tears before turning and readdressing his discarded clothing. _

_ “The thing is, I  _ felt _ when Luke and Leia passed. How their energy dissolved and faded.” She shook her head, her voice growing unsteady with every word. “But not you. I didn’t feel you fade away. I didn’t  _ feel  _ your acceptance, your destiny, as I felt theirs. It was like…” Her shoulders shook with barely-suppressed sobs, and Ben felt himself move closer, even when steps were unimaginable, impossible. “It was like you just blinked out of existence. Not  _ gone _ \- just not  _ here.

_ “If you…” Her next breath shuddered as she inhaled, broken. “If you’re out there, if what you said before you left is true, please… Please let me know somehow.” _

_ Before he left. _

_ Words whispered across the bond because his voice was already gone, already fading into another realm as he accepted his fate. As his regrets mounted. A foolish thing to say, an inexcusable hope to thrust at her as he drained his life so that she could live. _

I’ll come back for you, sweetheart.

I promise.

_ “Please,” she choked, and Ben moved closer still, until he was just next to her, looking down at trembling shoulders as she struggled valiantly to keep her emotions in check. _

_ Hands reaching, apparating from nowhere, from the other realm, from his own psyche as he struggled against his disembodiment. They stretched, tendrils of energy snaking out, becoming something recognizable, something intimate. Something she would know. _

_ Her breath faltered, freezing, tears emptying all at once as he spread the energy, encompassing her shoulders the way his palms would have. The sensation of a thumb caressing the nodules of her spine, up and down. Fingertips curling over her collarbones. _

_ "Ben,” she gasped, a hand coming up, stretching over the knot of his energy on her shoulder, fingers wrapping around the nonexistent physicality of his hand, palm enveloping the ridges of his knuckles. _

_ She could  _ feel  _ him. _

_ Rey. _

_ She gasped again, but didn’t dare turn around, breath quivering with her next inhale as her hand settled a scant inch away from her shoulder, molding around the shape of his. _

_ " _ _ Is this real?” she whispered, maybe to him, maybe to herself. And he wanted to answer, tell her  _ yes, yes it’s real, I’m here, I’m right here _ , but all sound rushed away as he fell backwards, away from the light and the Force and  _ her _ , thrust back into the darkness. _

_ He felt himself scream, felt the way his lungs expanded and contracted with a voice lost to the rushing of time, felt himself shout her name, but she was much too far, out of his reach. _

_ She always had been. _

_ I need to go back to her. _

_ " _ _ Not now,” the voice said, a hint of the sadness that completely encompassed him in her tone. It enveloped him like an old friend, wrapping him up in a heavy blanket of familiarity. _

_ Sadness he knew. _

_ Loss he knew. _

_ Not like this, though. _

_ She felt me. _

_ “She did,” the voice affirms. “She still can, if she knows where to look. But she doesn’t.” _

_ I _ _ ’m stuck. _

_ "Yes,” she agrees. “She holds you here. Your Force in her veins keeps you afloat between this life and the next.” _

_ How? _

_ " _ _ The bond,” the voice says, and he can nearly hear the shrug in her tone. “I’ve never before witnessed two beings so completely intertwined.” _

_ The bond should have broken with my death. _

_ “Perhaps if you’d died by natural circumstances,” the voice explained carefully. _

_ But he hadn’t. _

_ He’d poured half of himself into her. The only half he had left, after their battle with Palpatine. Everything he could give, whatever he thought was necessary to force her heart back to life, to make blood pump through her veins once more. _

_ Theirs was not something ever seen in anything other than lore and prophecy. He’d done the barest amount of research in his - admittedly limited - spare time once he learned the truth. In a sore attempt to convince her to join him, as he’d been unable to do in Snoke’s throne room. _

_ It all seemed extraordinarily inconsequential now. _

_ And she lived while he did not. Would continue living, his Force flowing through her, keeping her tethered to the organic galaxy, while he moved aimlessly through this near-existence, until the day came when she passed into the Force herself, old and withered and happy. _

_ “You make many ridiculous assumptions for someone so intelligent,” the voice mocked, and Ben wanted desperately to find the source, to solve the mystery of whomever it was that haunted his restless death. “Your tether can be broken, Ben.” _

_ How? _

_ “She must let go of your Force.” _

_ No. _

_ “You did not allow me to finish,” the voice mused. “So quick to jump to conclusions, you Skywalker men.” Ben didn’t respond, waiting for the voice to elaborate. “It will not kill her.” _

_ Not having it  _ did _ kill her. _

_ “Yes, but her own Force replenished and interlaced with yours. She is half you, half herself. Unnecessarily, now.” _

_ … What must she do? _

_ How can I help? _

_ H _ _ ow can I convince her to let me go? _

_ “I am glad you asked.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three guesses as to who is mocking Ben beyond the grave.
> 
> Also I decided I'm going to update on Saturdays instead of Sundays, if I can help it, because I literally have nothing else to do at work.
> 
> Love you guys <3 Lemme know what you think.
> 
> **This is the second time in as many works that I've introduced the word fuck as something used by Ben instead of any other character. It just feels right.
> 
> Also, it was pointed out to me that I'm not very good at keeping track of what tense I'm writing in. I'm sorry!!! I'm going to try and be better about that. It's my vice as a writer. I'll be going and I'll start writing in present tense as I'm picturing the scene, which isn't an excuse, just an explanation.
> 
> Thank you guys for bearing with me! I'm honing my craft.


	7. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so uh Feel Something by Jaymes Young may go with this chapter.

Rey came to all at once, Ben’s name on her lips as she sat straight up. A blanket fell from around her shoulders, pooling in her lap, and her breath stuttered as she struggled to remember what happened.

The memories rush back all at once - the Force, the mist,  _ Ben _ , real and whole and  _ alive _ in her arms. His skin and warmth against hers. The rift in space that allowed her to fall through one plane and into the next, the  _ cave _ \--

The cave.

But surrounding her was the bedroom of her Tatooine hovel.

“What--?”

“Who’s ‘Ben’?” a voice asked, and Rey yelps, eyes focusing on the figure across the room. Rose is there, bent over Rey’s desk, her back to Rey and obviously very intensely focused on something obstructed by her body.

“What?” Rey asked again, blinking away the memories, trying desperately to focus. Her stomach roiled, churning uncomfortably, and she curled in on herself with a gag. This grabs Rose’s attention, who is at her side in a second with a wastebasket in hand. Rey heaved once, then grabbed the basket, retching bile and stomach acid into the bin in surges. It seems to last forever, but can’t be more than a few minutes, as Rose gently strokes her back, murmuring to let it all out.

Finally, the convulsions subsided, and Rose handed Rey a glass of water she procured from somewhere. The nightstand, maybe? Taking slow, tentative sips, Rey’s stomach settled, protesting quietly but not as profusely. She took deep, anxious breaths, slowing her heart rate, her body feeling out of control as it threatened to reject even the small amount of water she ingested.

“Feeling better?” Rose asked quietly, and Rey nodded, eyelids heavy. “Did that feel as unexpected as it seemed?”

“I think maybe it just took a minute for my body to realize it was awake,” Rey admitted, using the water to rinse her mouth. The world around her blurred at the edges, so standing up to brush her teeth was out of the question. Rose sets the bin by their feet, well within reach if necessary but far enough away that the smell is obscured. “What are you doing here?”

“Poe had us bolting from our Mon Cala - Alsakan trade negotiation hearing as soon as he got BB-8’s distress signal,” Rose said with a shrug. “We were here in about two hours.”

“BB-8 sent a distress signal?” Rey narrowed her eyes, trying to clear her head so she could absorb this information.

“Well, I can’t really say I blame him, what with you literally falling into a  _ wall _ and whatnot.” Rose let out an exasperated breath. “I never really understood all this Force stuff, and that’s on me because I never really  _ tried _ , even after you started training Finn, but you literally  _ came through stone _ without there being any sort of break or crack, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.” Rey managed a weak smile, even as Rose gave her an irritated side-eye.

“I didn’t mean to worry anyone,” Rey responded carefully. “I wasn’t expecting the runes to open up like that.”

“ _ Nothing _ ‘opened up’, you were just able to walk through  _ solid rock _ .” Rose shook her head, eyes wide, as though still in disbelief about what she saw. “How did you do that?”

“I just pushed my energy into the map, and the map responded.” Her words were picked precisely, because she had no real explanation. At least, none that Rose would understand. How do you explain that the bond in your head that once connected you to the Supreme Leader of the conquered First Order persisted even after his demise, even though you couldn’t feel it? How do you explain that his Force now lives in you, that you used his energy to compel the Force to connect you to him once more?

How do you explain that, even after everything he did, you decided to love him?

Rose, at least, seems to accept this answer, perhaps as another added mystery the mechanic knows will never be solved. “Where did you go?”

“I’m not sure,” Rey responded honestly. “The Force - I needed it to show me something, and it  _ did _ , but I’m just as confused now as I was before I went in. Maybe I just didn’t get enough time to figure out what it was trying to say. I barely had time to catch my breath.” Rose was quiet for a long moment, reflecting, maybe.

“You were in there for nearly twelve standard hours,” she said quietly, and Rey turned too quickly, her stomach rolling uncomfortably as she did.

“ _ Twelve hours? _ ” she gasped, brow furrowing. “No, that’s not right. I hardly got a few minutes with B-- within the realm.” She corrected herself quickly, but Rose still cocked an eyebrow, turning more fully toward Rey on the bed. Clearly not missing Rey’s slip.

“Who is ‘Ben’?” she asked again, and Rey felt her eyes widen of their own accord. “You said that name when you initially fell back through the wall, and then you shouted it again when you woke up.”

Rey wrung her hands in her lap, trying to come up with a logical explanation. A definition of what that name meant to her, of the person who held it. Pursing her lips, Rey took another slow, steadying breath, staring as though she might find the answer in the sheets.

“When you said it back at the cave, Finn went really quiet,” Rose continued when she realized Rey couldn’t think of a coherent response. “Like… I don’t know, like he was afraid. Or upset. Maybe both.”

Of course he would be. Finn knew who Ben was, though they’ve never discussed him outside of his affiliation with the First Order, never referred to him as anything other than Kylo Ren. He’d been there, just as she had, when Ben had thrust that lightsaber through Han Solo’s stomach. He’d heard Han shouting his son’s true name.

Rey had never told anyone of her connection to Ben. Initially it had been fear that they would cast her out, see her as a liability, thinking at any moment that the nefarious Kylo Ren could pull their hiding place from her mind, even if the bond didn’t work that way. Later, it had warped, her fear morphing when the idea struck her that they may try and use the connection  _ against  _ Ben, lure him into some sort of trap that would inevitably get him killed.

She couldn’t handle either scenario. So she kept it to herself. The connection had only grown stronger over time, until she was getting hit with waves of Ben’s emotions at random, seeing him in her peripheral without the bond opening completely, envisioning his dreams in her sleep.

Feeling him, constantly, in the back of her mind. A warm, ever-present sensation she grew accustomed to. Revelled in, at times, on base when she felt more alone surrounded by all the Resistance members than she ever had in her dilapidated AT-AT back on Jakku.

And then he was gone. And she was alone again.

“Rey?” The concern in Rose’s tone is what drew her eyes up until they met the other girl’s, a warmth of understanding swimming in her eyes. “You’re crying.”

She wiped at her cheeks, and sure enough, they came away wet. Sniffling, Rey managed a sarcastic laugh, swallowing around a lump in her throat she hadn’t realized was even there.

“I suppose I am.”

A warm, small hand rested on her shoulder as Rey struggled not to break into sobs. The gesture was meant to be comforting, and Rey  _ knew  _ that, but all she could think about was the feeling of a different hand, the way this same gesture felt so dissimilar to the hand she wished had been placed upon her bare skin.

The monster in her chest awoke, stretching like a lothcat, talons gripping her chest until it threatened to tear completely in two. She grit her teeth as the impression threatened to overwhelm her, struggling to shove it all aside, to  _ ignore it _ as studiously as she had been since the beginning.

“You don’t owe me any explanations,” Rose said slowly, as if willing Rey to commit her words to memory. “You don’t owe  _ anyone _ an explanation. But I remember losing Paige like it was yesterday. And the worst part of it was being so utterly  _ alone  _ in my grief.” Rose continued rubbing Rey’s shoulder, fingers pressing in a little more tightly, as though reminding herself of the candor of her own words, as well as Rey.

“My sister died, and I thought I had no one. But that wasn’t true.” The smaller girl leaned back on one arm, the other coming to rest on Rey’s shoulder, comfort in the reminder of someone else’s presence. “I met Finn that day, and he probably doesn’t even realize how much he helped me through her loss. And then, once everything settled a little bit after Crait, I was able to reminisce about her with Poe and Kaydel, Pamich and Jess and Snap, and I realized that, even though  _ I _ lost her, other people did, too.”

Rey’s vision blurred, her jaw trembling as she turned more fully toward Rose, who looked on her with complete understanding in her eyes. As though she could comprehend Rey’s loss because she’d experienced it herself. And she had - they’d spoken very briefly of it, during their time on Mon Cala, when they’d bunked together as Leia negotiated the Mon Calamari assistance in rebuilding the Resistance.

But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? Rose lost Paige, yes; but  _ other people did too. _ Rose wasn’t alone because, while the sadness ran so much deeper for Rose, it echoed around the Resistance with other people, as well.

No one else lost Ben. No one else was around to care that he was gone.

Just her.

“You helped me, too,” Rose urged her, sitting up fully again, taking one of Rey’s hands in both of her own. “Because you’ve lost  _ so much _ , and you’ve kept your head high through all of it. You’re so strong, Rey. It’s okay to break down sometimes.”

“I--” The explanation nearly came of its own volition, sneaking past her lips in a desperate attempt to escape, to finally divulge someone else of the secret anguish she’s kept pent up inside for so many months. They nearly spilled from her throat like the bile had, without her consent, worming their way up through her throat.

She trusted Rose inexplicably with her life. Knew for a fact that the mechanic would defend Rey’s physical body with her dying breath. Rey just wasn’t sure if the same courtesy could be extended to her secrets.

After a moment, she shook her head, and Rose sighed deeply, as though expecting this response. “If you keep everything bottled up, it’s going to weigh you down completely.”

“I know,” Rey said softly as Rose stood up. She held onto Rose’s hands as she attempted to step away, squeezing once to regain the other girl’s attention. “When I’m ready, I know who I can go to.”

Rose smiled at this, nodding once before letting Rey go. She walked out of the room, her voice carrying through the empty house as she said something to BB-8 and D-O, her voice chastising, as though she’d caught naughty children sneaking snacks. Rey couldn’t even smile, the beast in her chest huffing anxiously, trying passively to claw its way out. She tamped it down, shoving it aside as it silently howled her misery, filling only her ears in the quiet bedroom.

She doesn’t know how long she sat there, exhausted but too keyed up to lie back down. She could hear Rose bustling about through the hovel, the clanking of pots and pans in the distant kitchen. The soft hum of machinery working to harvest the water deep underground. The droids, bickering about something inane, likely about having been caught in their mischief.

Eventually, the pain in her chest subsided, and she took a deep breath in what felt like the first time in hours. She stood slowly, making sure her stomach wasn’t going to revolt against any movement.

As she steadied herself like a newborn pripak, she heard commotion from the front of her house, and Rey realized that she’d not heard Finn or Poe during her entire conversation with Rose. Unable to pick out what they were discussing over every other sound in the house, but suddenly there was a rushing toward her bedroom.

Finn barrelled around the corner, eyes wide until they met hers. They took in her coltish gait, the way she seemed to be struggling to stand, and narrowed as he marched toward her.

“What did he do?” Finn asked angrily, reaching out as though to grab her before thinking better of it. “Is he the reason you went through that wall? Did he make you?”

“What are you talking about?” Rey asked, leaning against her nightstand for support.

“ _ Ren _ ,” Finn hissed the name like a curse, like it left a foul taste in his mouth, and the beast in Rey’s chest reared again, preparing to pounce so shortly after she’d gotten it settled. “You said  _ his name _ when you came back. Did he hurt you? I couldn’t sense him, but you’ve always been able to feel him way before I could.”

Rey said nothing, having to bite her tongue to keep from lashing out, telling him how absolutely wrong he was.

“I thought he died when the Final Order star destroyers went down, but I guess I wouldn’t know,” Finn continued, unable or perhaps unwilling to see how Rey was positively seething. “He was in the manifest for the  _ Steadfast _ when it crashed into Exegol, but everything burned, we weren’t able to find any bodies--”

“Finn,” Rey interrupted, her teeth clenched. “Kylo Ren is dead.”

Finn kept his eyes trained on her, as if trying to detect the source of this sudden shift in her mood, completely ignoring the fact that it was  _ him _ . “Then why did you shout his name? Not even Kylo, or Ren. You shouted ‘Ben’.”

“It’s none of your business,” Rey retorted hotly.

“Rey, I just want to understand--”

“Well you don’t!” she shouted, the fiend in her chest coming forth, the home its made beneath her diaphragm opening to a wellspring of emotion she had been so afraid to feel. It perked up as if to say  _ yes, yes, finally, it’s my turn _ , standing on hind legs and giving way to a torrent of passion she’d been so set on shoving aside, stomping down into nothing. Leaving the wound open to fester as the beast fed on the strength of that pain. “You won’t, you will  _ never understand! _ ”

“Maybe I would if you’d just tell me!” She could hear the others making their way through the house, sneaking quietly to listen in on the argument, and the monster revelled in the attention, rejoicing in being heard. “I know you better than anyone; I know you’re hiding something that hurts you every day!” What a load of bantha shit. Rey narrowed her eyes.

“Maybe I haven’t told you because even if I did, even if you knew  _ everything _ , you’d still only be concerned with understanding the situation! You don’t have any idea who I am, Finn! Because you only care about what I’m able to do for  _ you! _ ” Her jaw was trembling not with the promise of tears, but with pure anger, unable to go anywhere else but  _ out _ .

The beast roared its satisfaction as Finn squared his shoulders, taking the energy she was projecting and unconsciously warping it to fit his narrative.

“I am out here every other week to check on you, to make sure you have what you need!”

“You are here only if you need something fixed or if you want your next lesson,” she spit back.

“That’s not true! BB-8 sent a distress signal--”

“That Poe responded to.”

“--and we stuck around to make sure you were okay!”

“No,” Rey scoffed. “No, you stuck around to interrogate me on why I said Ben’s name. Because you know he’d be a threat to this Republic you’re trying desperately to build.”

“Forgive me for not wanting to partake in another war, considering the last one nearly killed me!”

“The last one  _ did  _ kill me!” Rey could feel the monster in her chest as it chuckled darkly, snapping to attention and ready to unhinge its jaws and  _ eat _ . “You want to know how I  _ know _ Kylo Ren is dead?” She closed the distance between herself and Finn, her chest nearly pressed against his, and she could see how afraid he was in the way his eyes tightened around the edges. “Because  _ I killed him. _ ”

A truth in its own right, one she wasn’t sure how to face, not really. Because the guilt was greater than anything she could ever hope to experience. Finn didn’t,  _ couldn’t _ know the depth of her utter despair. Finn has always done the right thing, even when it threatened to take his life. Finn was willing to lay down and be bowled for the good of the galaxy. He was an incredible person, would be an even greater Jedi.

And Rey was…

“Rey, that’s--”  _ Good. He was going to say ‘good’. _

“I killed him,” she hissed again, clenching her jaw, “and I am in  _ anguish _ over it every day.”

Finn blinked, confusion clouding his features. “I don’t understand. Kylo Ren was awful - a  _ Darksider _ .” He said that word like he knew what it meant. “Killing him benefitted the entire galaxy? Why would you--?” The beast  _ roared _ , loudly in her own ears, as vigorously as her next words were quiet.

“Get out,” she interrupted, and the beast stalked behind the cage of her ribs, leering at Finn behind bars he couldn’t see. Finn opened his mouth, almost certainly to protest, and Rey reared back. “Get out,  _ get out, get out of my house!” _ He stared at her a few moments longer, searching her searing eyes, looking for any amount of doubt, but all she felt was resolve and fury.

Finally,  _ finally _ , he backed up the three steps to her doorway, then turned, stomping down the four stairs that led to her bedroom and turning the corner, out of sight. She was tempted to scream, to hurl more insults, to make his heart  _ bleed _ the way hers did, but she kept the words clamped behind the barrier of her teeth, taking deep, steadying breaths, willing the beast back to sleep. It complied, satisfied with her outburst, retracting its claws from her lungs and laying dormant once more.

S he heard some muttering, a few exchanged words, and then retreating back up the hallway until their footsteps were drowned out by the hum of machinery. She allowed herself a few more minutes of quiet, of anger, before the reality of the situation doused her in a cold clarity.

_ Finn _ . Her best friend - her  _ first friend _ .

What had she done?

She wanted desperately to rush after him, chase him into the sand and beg forgiveness. To explain the entire situation - the bond, the final showdown with Palpatine,  _ everything _ . But shame kept her rooted to the spot, tears silently working their way down her cheeks as the shroud of her mortification settled like a weight on her shoulders. It dragged her down, pulling her to the floor, where she hid her face in her knees and let the humiliation roll around her like the tide against the rocky shores of Ahch-To.

No sobbing, no screaming, not like when Ben came and left. Just hot, wet torment silently cascading until they dropped, lukewarm, against the thin fabric of her pants.

Why was everything so difficult?

Why did everything feel exponentially more difficult now that Ben was gone? Having the literal enemy within your mind was supposed to be incredibly complex, not simple.  _ Not  _ having him should have made things easier, not harder.

_ Ben, _ she whispered into that empty doorway. That constant reminder of his absence. It echoed soundlessly, making her shiver with nonexistent cold.  _ Please. _

Rey had never been one to revel in comfort. She’d spent so much of her life on her own that the idea of any physical or emotional consolation made her skin crawl with displeasure. It had taken her ages to warm up to the idea of hugging Finn or Poe or Rose, even though each of them insisted on it despite her slight distress at the action.

But now, in this moment, she wanted nothing more than to feel Ben’s arms around her. To hold her and tell her it was okay, that her emotions, however catastrophic and tumultuous, were valid.

The silence echoed hollowly, and the dormant beast in Rey’s chest perked, already preparing for a second round of hysteria. She shoved it down, burying it in the graveyard of her chest, beneath the stone tombs where her mother, father, Luke and Leia lay buried.

_ Ben, please... _

The mausoleum in her mind reverberated vacantly, stretching to infinity in a pool of black emptiness deeper than she could comprehend.

Her silence turned to sobs as something within her shattered, and Rey realized that she was utterly alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O shit whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' at you with another update not on the schedule.  
> I've been sick this week so I've had more time to write than normal.
> 
> I've been sick at WORK this week so mostly I've just been neglecting my duties but whatever.
> 
> *This is your gentle reminder that Rey is certifiably Not Okay™. Her outbursts are not necessarily unwarranted but she's also not doing too great. And she's so closed off, that sand gremlin has no idea how to deal with what she's going through.
> 
> **Soft headcanon that Rey and Rose would absolutely be best friends if Disney hadn't completely ruined Rose's character by throwing her away and making her nothing.
> 
> ***I'm not totally happy with this chapter so I'm sorry if it comes off awkward or stilted. But it's all totally necessary, I promise. Something big is coming.
> 
> Love you guys! See you soon!


	8. Stepping Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're feeling it, Way Out There by Lord Huron pairs well with this chapter.

Hours later, Rey awakens abruptly, sitting up from her hunched position on the floor, her back cracking as it releases from the strain of sitting in a single position for an extended period of time. She stretches, the ache protesting loudly as she reaches her hands above her head.

The melancholy hadn’t dissipated. Her argument with Finn weighed heavily on her heart as she made her way into the kitchen, hoping for something simple to prepare quickly that she could eat while she sat down and drafted an apology.

Surprisingly, Rose was there, leaning against the counter. She munched absently on a piece of starch loaf from Rey’s rations, making Rey’s skin prickle uncomfortably with territorialism, as Rose swiped through a datapad. When Rey entered, she perked up, nodding once in Rey’s direction.

“Sorry,” she mumbled through a full mouth, holding up the starch loaf. Chewing for another minute, she finally swallowed. “I was starving, and the boys didn’t leave any protein packs.”

“It’s fine,” Rey lied with what she hoped was a convincing smile. Jakku had made her entirely too selfish with her food, hoarding it away for herself even though she had enough now to last her months if the need arose. “Finn and Poe left?”

“They went to check out the pod races in Mos Espa,” Rose nodded. Rey hesitated.

“How is Finn?”

“Mad,” Rose said bluntly. “Well, mad and confused. But mostly mad, I think.” Rose shrugged as Rey grabbed the other piece of starch loaf off the counter, taking a small bite. Her chest ached with the idea of her best friend holding that resentment toward her. “They were going to leave, but I made them stick around so I could make sure you were alright.”

“So they got as far away from me as physically possible,” Rey said dryly around a mouthful of bread. Rose just shrugged and Rey sighed, sitting on one of the kitchen chairs. She dropped her elbows against her knees, rubbing her temples, trying to dispel a headache that hadn’t even come to fruition yet. Could feel it apparating in the soft ringing of her ears. The chair across from her dragged against the sandstone floor, then squeaked softly as Rose sat down, as well.

“You know, Paige and I used to be obsessed with those trashy romance holonovels.” Rey glanced up at her, but Rose was studiously studying the remainder of her starch loaf, picking off a piece and tossing it between her lips. “When things got too hectic, and we needed a break, we’d sneak off behind the crates in the cargo hold with blankets and way too many snacks and cups of insta-caf, and we’d stay up all night reading whatever book was trending on the romance holo list that week.

“Usually we’d just sit there and make fun of how utterly ridiculous some of the stories were.” Rose smiled, eyes distant, lost in the memories of spending time with her sister. Precious things she could hold on to, could reminisce on when the nights got too dark. “But there was one in particular, Paige kept having me reread it. She’d never admit it, but it was her favorite.

“It was about these dueling kingdoms who’d been at war for so long that no one could remember what they were fighting about.  _ Centuries _ of nonstop combat.

“The story was told from the perspective of the princess. Her kingdom was painted to be the one that wanted nothing more than to keep peace, that kept sending diplomats to draw up treaties only to have their heads returned on spikes. Her mother had died during a siege when she was very young, so her father - the king of the peaceful land - kept her very sheltered, hidden away.

“One night she gets kidnapped from her chambers by a ghoul in knight’s armor.” Rose smiles, rolling her eyes. “It turned out to be the king of the other kingdom, a ruthless and vicious ruler who never took quarter and left no survivors. The princess was convinced he took her to teach her father a lesson by killing her, but instead of locking her in a dungeon, he locked her away in a separate wing of his own quarters, where she had a bed and a bath. Amenities she was sure most prisoners didn’t get. Servants came in and out, waited on her, and she seldom saw the savage king. But she was still convinced he would kill her when he got the chance.”

“Rose--”

“Then slowly, little by little, the savage king introduced himself to her. And she found that, when not faced with the heat of battle, or the drollness of the monarchy, he was actually quite kind. And the longer she stayed, the more stories she heard, not of diplomats attempting to create peace between countries, but of assassins coming in an attempt to kill the savage king that the princess was concluding was not so savage.” Rose chuckled. “The princess realized that there were two sides to every story, especially in war. And she realized that there were two sides to the not-so-savage king, too.”

Rose was quiet for a long moment, a small smile on her lips. “The princess fell in love with the king. Because of course, trashy romance holonovel. Paige loved that, because so much of the book is spent spinning this guy as this ferocious villain who has brought nothing but tyranny to the kingdoms, and because he was painted as the perpetuator of this war, but the princess got to see this other side of him that no one else could. He wasn’t the villain, not really, he was just young and made a lot of mistakes along the way, and there were a lot of untrue things said about him.”

Rey waited for her to continue, but the small mechanic just munched happily on her starch loaf.

“How does it end?”

Rose grinned. “The princess marries the savage king, bringing an end to the war and uniting the kingdoms once and for all.” Her grin softens, morphing into something mournful. “I think maybe that’s why Paige liked it so much. Not only because the princess gets the hunky, misunderstood king in the end, but because they get their happily ever after. So many stories in our lives have ended in tragedy. It was nice for us to escape into a happy world for a little bit.”

“It is a nice story,” Rey agrees softly, shoving the last piece of bread into her mouth. Rose gives her a long, incredulous look, and Rey stares back with wide eyes. “What?”

Huffing, Rose shakes her head, rolling her eyes. “Never mind. Just - I want you to know that I understand that there’s two sides to every story, okay?” Rey nodded slowly, trying to catch on to Rose’s mentality. She came up blank. “And I’m still here if you need to talk.”

“Thank you,” Rey said, still somewhat confused. Her thoughts turned back to the missing person in the room, and she sighed deeply. “I still don’t know what I’m going to do about Finn.”

“Let him cool down,” Rose suggested, leaning back in the chair. It protested weakly, having spent so many years without anyone to sit on it. The furniture leftover from the Lars’ was not the safest for casual seating, and Rey cringed. “He needs time to think about what you said, and see things from your perspective. He’ll come around.”

Rey’s chest tugged uncomfortably, and she wrapped her arms around herself, a poor attempt to keep her body from falling apart. “What if he doesn’t?”

“Then you’ll have to explain it to him,” Rose shrugged. “Or don’t. That’s completely up to you. But these secrets are definitely hurting you. We can all see it.”

Her chest tugged again, and she rubbed at the uncomfortable pain that pulsed between her lungs, trying to dispel the sensation beneath her skin. It almost breathed with its own life, a second heart beating uncomfortably beside her own, too fast, too hard. Clenching her teeth, she stood, pressing her hand harder against her chest as the pain crescendoed.

“Rey?”

The second heartbeat sped up, the propellor of the  _ Falcon’s _ hyperdrive engine beating inside her chest, and Rey hunched, suppressing a groan of pain and trying to centralize the pain’s origin. Her breath came out in gasps, fingers shaking against the tabletop as the stinging spread through her veins like fire, following the path of her blood.

“Rey!”

_ Rey. _

She looked up, eyes squinted against the pain. The unmistakable form in front of her, shrouded in black, obstructing the path of light. She reached for him, but he didn’t move and she couldn’t comprehend why.

_ Rey, I can’t… _

“Ben,” she gasped, the name barely discernible through her breath. She reached for his form again, and he still didn’t move, his black outline blurring as her eyes lost focus. The pain beat in time with the second heart, pounding from within her ribs as though it could break its way out. As if it had fists, beating against her bones, trying to crack straight through them, pound through her skin.

_ Out, out, out. _

The doorway in her mind blew open and  _ screamed _ , a high-pitched keening that had her dropping to her knees. She reflexively covered her ears, but it didn’t help,  _ couldn’t _ help, the sound was coming from inside her skull. It echoed in the unoccupied space, reverberating louder and louder every time it looped around, faster and faster, until it matched the speed of the unknown heartbeat, until it reached the pinnacle.

_ Rey! _

She didn’t know if it was Ben or Rose who shouted for her. Perhaps both. Her lungs burned, imparting their own anguish, and absently she knew she must be yelling. But it was impossible to hear over the keening in her ears, getting louder and louder, swirling in the vortex of nothing in her mind. Like the entire galaxy was bellowing at her from within her brain, making her skull feel like it may tear itself in two just to relieve the pain.

I n a fit of desperation, she reached into that endless well of nothing. The limb of her Force stretched around oblivion, expanding through the doorway, into the nothingness. It searched blindly, reaching further and further, until she found something. A tear in the nothing - a  _ hole _ , an edge she was able to grasp.

It ripped like a piece of paper when she pulled.

Tearing through the fabric of her sanity, all of the pain and the noise suddenly blew from her body like the wind, like a breath, expelled into the doorway of her mind that should have connected her to the other half of her soul. Like the pressure that had built up so high suddenly found the outlet it had been searching for.

Gasping a full breath, Rey looked down at her hands beneath her, supporting her weight from where she’d landed on her knees on the floor. Rose was beside her, wide eyes wild with worry, crouched beside Rey with hands on her shoulders.

“Rey?” she asked breathlessly, searching the Jedi’s eyes as she struggled to focus.

“I’m okay,” Rey responded, throat aching with the rawness of overuse. She shrugged Rose away when she tried to help her up, rising to her feet on her own, pressing a hand against her chest where the phantom pain had been a mere moment ago. It was completely gone, only something Rey was able to imagine now.

“What the fuck was  _ that _ ?” Rose asked. “You were fine, and then all of the sudden you were  _ screaming _ bloody murder, and yelling at something to… to go away.”

She didn’t remember that part. BB-8 and D-O circled her legs worriedly, asking her if she was okay, if bacta would help,  _ there’s a whole supply in the med room but it might be a little outdated I can check _ . She patted BB-8’s head, taking another deep breath, her lungs giving a weak twinge of protest.

“I’m okay,” she said again, this time addressing the droids. Blinking, Rey searched for a moment. Actually, she felt better than she had in months. Like she’d been carrying a two-hundred-pound cloak over her shoulders, and suddenly it was shed, allowing her to stand up straight for the first time since Exegol.

Rose looked at her still, studying with undisguised worry etched into her features. Rey felt herself smile without having to focus, without having to force. As easily as it had come once upon a time, wearing a broken Rebel helmet while sitting in the sand, her imagination taking her leagues away from her reality.

It was so simple now, she could hardly remember why everything hurt so much for so long.

But a troublesome thought still managed to slip through the cracks of her newfound contentment. It slithered in unwanted, a serpent to slither in and disrupt the surface of her new reality.

If she’d discarded that cloak from her shoulders, where did it land?

* * *

_P_ _ hysicality did not come all at once. _

_ Ben can’t say how long he spent floating, existing as a corporeal specter within the expansive nihility that manufactured this realm. _

_ Some of that time was spent conferring with the unnamed phantom, her faint outline never forming anything substantial. She would not give herself a name, though she seemed amused when he did ask. _

_ His questions mostly went unanswered, and Ben could only assume what whomever it was that kept him company in his death did not spend all of her time here. _

_ Still, he asked. _

_ Am I a ghost? _

_ "No,” she said after a few minutes - or hours, or days, he would never know for certain. “Not in the sense of Force ghosts - you don’t possess enough of your power to manifest in alternate locations as others can.” _

_ Because Rey has it. _

_ The voice said nothing, but the silence was an admittance. _

_ When he  _ did  _ begin reforming a body, it was an indescribable feeling. Like reaching into the ether and pulling at miniscule particles of matter, stretched over infinity, until he was painstakingly putting together a million-piece puzzle with only his own memory as reference. Where the knowledge apparated that this was a possibility was a mystery he wasn’t too keen on solving. _

_ As he worked, a speck in the distance began taking form. Initially only a small dot in his peripheral, it expanded and materialized over the weeks he spent creating. _

_ A planet, he realized. _

_ “The phases have begun,” the voice said cryptically, and Ben did not question it, far too focused on the enigma of erecting his own body from everything and nothing. _

_ As the planet grew not in size, but in distance, the distraction became impossible to ignore. _

_ I _ _ t was something beautiful. Uncharted in a way that could not be properly described. The voice explained that this planet moved with a life of its own, lit not by a star but by the light from within the core. It called to him like a siren, pulling him in like destiny. The surface shimmered like water, a ripple of impracticality against solid ground, amassing a feeling of disbelief and wonder against his rebirthed eyes. _

_ Impossible eyelids blinked, and he was standing on the surface. _

_ Three things happened simultaneously; his lungs expanded with their first gulp of air in an extended period of time; his chest ached with effort as a non-dormant his heart forced blood through his dried veins; his feet gave out from beneath, new legs so unaccustomed to holding muscle anymore.  _

_ The impact knocked the newfound breath from his chest, and Ben grunted as pain laced through the side of his face where it hit the ground. His skin danced with sensation, tickled by the grass beneath him, softened with the brush of a breeze as it ruffled through his hair. His heart beat a distant, unsteady rhythm in his chest, hardly there, like it was only working part-time to force his body to life. _

_ Ben took a moment to just breathe, tasting air and grass, the perfume of unnamed flowers filling his senses. The ground shook beneath his form as the planet moved through space, and he could feel it against every inch of his skin. Like a ship propelling through hyperspace - barely there, but insistent all the same. _

_ It took a great amount of effort to get his arms beneath him, unused muscles twitching and straining with every small movement. Propped on his forearms, his shoulders nearly gave out as he pushed up, trembling as he forced himself to move. Jaw clenched, Ben tried desperately not to feel like a newborn Corellian hound, his quivering muscles protesting as he pressed onto his knees. _

_ Feeling absolutely inept, he huffed a breath of exertion, sitting back on his knees to rest for a moment as he worked his way back to his feet. _

_ Leia Organa stood before him. _

_ Cast in an ethereal blue hue, she stood with her shoulders back, head held high like the aristocratic diplomat she once was. Her hair was piled atop her head in a traditional Alderaanian nobility braid, the same she wore throughout his childhood as she rebuilt the Republic from scratch. _

_ For a moment, they just stared at one another, Ben’s hands shaking for a reason unrelated to his exhausted muscles. His breath, still so new to inhale, was stuck in his chest, studying Leia, waiting for her to take action, to scream at him, to accuse and berate and everything else he so desperately deserves. _

_ “Ben.” Her tone was soft and soothing, the same voice she once used to keep the nightmares at bay when he was still young enough to fit in the cradle of her arms. Consoling. Small, weathered hands reached out, wrinkled with the age that Ben had not borne witness to, was off gallivanting and causing mayhem and destruction while these hands withered smaller every day. _

_ It was odd, to see such a formidable woman look so different and so similar to his memory all at once. _

_ Her fingers combed through his hair, a whisper against his skin, substantial but feather-light, and the dam within his soul broke. The pieces of his spirit that had been crushed when he pushed that lightsaber through Han Solo’s chest wept with the recognition of his mother’s touch. _

_ “Mom,” he gasped, voice hoarse with disuse. On his knees, she stood only a scant few inches taller, tiny in a way she’d never before seemed. Her presence was once enough to fill even the largest Republic auditorium. Now, she was strong but subdued, a humbled extension of the woman who’d had some part in raising him. _

_ She shimmered as she stepped toward him, transcendental, reminding him only that she’d died, too. That her passing served as a reminder to everything he’d already sacrificed, leading in no small part to the cataclysm of events on Exegol. To the reinstatement of Ben Solo as Kylo Ren shriveled and died, buried in the furthest reaches of his soul. A lost tombstone serving as the only reminder of a past he’d rather forget. _

_ “Oh, Ben,” Leia said softly, dipping her thumbs down against his cheekbones, a vague imprint of her skin leaving trails as she wiped away tears he had no idea were falling. His hands came up, catching her wrists and holding them against his face, the outline of her figure like a brush of breeze against him. In his hands he held her, but she wasn’t a physical thing, wasn’t really there. _

_ With something of a shock, he realized he was. _

_ “Mom, what--?” _

_ “Hush,” Leia said, something like a playful smile on her lips. “The why is inconsequential. Let me look at my son for a moment.” _

_ Ben pressed his lips together, eyes tracking every movement as Leia studied him. Taking a deep, unnecessary breath, she seemed to come to life, eyes warming as they gazed at him. Absorbing the natural Force of this planet. He felt completely bare all at once, the clothes on his back doing nothing to shield him from the intensity of her gaze. She stripped him down to his bones and then further, making him vulnerable in a way he’d not felt since childhood. Exposing his soul for her scrutiny. _

_ His eyes blurred with unshed tears, warping Leia’s smile into a mottled mess, and Ben blinked rapidly, desperate to see, not knowing how long he may have with her. _

_ “My sweet boy,” she whispered, taking another step, wrapping her arms around Ben’s shoulders as he shook, the emotion he’d spent so long bottling up finally erupting. He threw his arms around her, squeezing in the middle, the odd not-presence of her body doing little to soothe the innate desire of her embrace. _

_ H _ _ e didn’t know he’d needed this. _

_ “You’ve done so well,” Leia murmured into his hair. _

_ “Mom--” _

_ “And I am so proud of you.” Pins and needles pricked his arms as they erupted in gooseflesh, and the insubstantiality of his mother’s body began dissolving in his grasp. He clung tighter, silently begging her to stay for just another minute, to unleash everything he’d kept pent up for so long, but brushed his hair back from his forehead, kissing it once, barely tangible, a ghost of a memory. “You’ve given so much. Now it’s her turn.” _

_ The words were an echo in the expansive verdure of this planet as she faded completely, and Ben collapsed back, arms empty of everything except sensation. _

_ " _ _ Mom,” he whispered to nothing, feeling her absence greater than it had ever before reared. Her loss ripped him open anew, Rey plunging his lightsaber through his abdomen barely registering as his heart screamed words his voice couldn’t find. That wound festered, bleeding open, dripping dejection into the cracked ground beneath him. The sky above continued to move when he looked up, uncaring of his turmoil. _

_ Not even his phantom came to comfort him as he wept. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello yes it is I, back on my bullshit once more.
> 
> Please read this chapter as it progresses my trash heap of a story, hurtling toward something exciting and different.
> 
> I just want you guys to know that I now spend more of my workday researching Star Wars canon than I do actually working.
> 
> I'm not complaining though.
> 
> It will kill me forever that Ben never got his moment with Leia like he got with Han, even if Han was only a memory. So I get to create that moment because this is my story and I am a dictator.
> 
> Please let me know what you think <3 I'll be back next week.


	9. Forgotten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Uranus by Sleeping at Last pairs well with this chapter (it's all instrumental).

“Rey!” Rey turned at the sound of her name, grin spreading across her cheeks as Jannah came running up on her in the city square. Mos Espa was lively in the afternoons, creatures of all races and sizes puttering back and forth to purchase and sell and observe. The market was a bustle of activity, and Rey blended well into the crowd in her light scavenger’s clothes and dark cloak.

She’d been bartering for fresh Almakian apples when the ever-familiar Force signatures broke atmo above, and had just finished purchasing Kashyyyk catfish for dinner when they crossed the threshold into town. Her bags of groceries stuffed to the brim, she carefully set them down to embrace the other girl as Maz, Lando and Chewie came into view behind her.

“How have you been?” Rey asked, pulling her attention back to the former Stormtrooper. “Any luck with Lando?”

Jannah blew out a breath through her teeth, rustling a loose curl that had strayed over her forehead. “It’d be significantly easier if the old debonair didn’t get distracted by the _ local galleries _ every time we stopped somewhere.” She wiggled her eyebrows for emphasis, and Rey laughed. Jannah blinked, then grinned herself. “You seem like you’re doing better!”

“Yeah!” Rey agreed, picking up her groceries as they moved to meet the others. “I’m not sure what happened but I’m feeling loads better.”

It had been about a week since Rose left to join Poe and Finn in Mos Eisley. They didn’t stop by when they left, they’d just faded away from the planet until they hit hyperspace.

After the strange incident in her kitchen, she’d hardly felt anything but peace. Finn’s departure without a goodbye was written off and forgotten about, and she’d only smiled at every worried glance Rose had cast her way as she packed up her belongings and left later that night. Returning to a simple schedule of training, cooking, fixing the hovel and reading the texts had come naturally. Sleep no longer eluded her, she didn’t collapse into tears at the simple thought of Exegol.

She’d started dreaming again. Real dreams, the regular islands and oceans, lush green forests of faraway places she hoped to visit someday. They were intersped and unencumbered, dotting her nights like distant stars to observe and wish upon.

Ben passed her mind like a ship in the night - distantly, a fleeting memory to recall before it slipped through her fingers once more, fading against the black horizon in the back of her mind. The hole he left behind didn’t feel so large anymore, didn’t gape and fester like a wound untreated, leaving her to pick at the scab so it wouldn’t heal.

It was as though someone had taken an entire jar of bacta and slathered it into the gash. It healed so well that there was hardly a scar to show for it. Ben’s absence still echoed hollowly in the back of her mind, but now she barely noticed the wind, too distracted by the home around her to pay any attention to the back door open to the night.

Chewie and Lando embraced her warmly, both pleasantly surprised when she hugged them back with as much vigor as she could muster. Chewbacca patted her head warmly, growling that she looked like the sun again, while Lando laughed and animatedly told extravagant stories of his latest adventures with Jannah.

It was a little odd when she gave Maz the same warm welcome she’d given the others, only to have Maz pull her down to eye level, studying Rey’s features as though looking for the crack in a perfect porcelain mask. She adjusted the frames of her goggles, eyes narrowed as she concentrated, then  _ tsk _ ing before releasing Rey’s chin.

“Is something the matter?” Rey asked as she fell in stride with the others, Chewie reaching and plucking one of the bags of groceries from her arms. She smiled gratefully at him before turning her attention back to Maz with a raised brow.

“We’ll talk later,” Maz responded, her voice betraying an uncertainty Rey wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced in the weathered pirate.

Jannah rode with Rey as they sped back toward the Lars homestead, talking about her search for her family, sifting through countless numbers of stormtrooper records. Together she, Finn, and the other former First Order soldiers were devising a rehabilitation of those who questioned their loyalty to the First Order, or those who simply had nowhere else to go once it had fallen. Her time was split between that and her adventure with Lando, traversing the galaxy, not only looking for her own birthplace, but also the families of other stormtroopers who’d been plucked for grooming before they were old enough to walk.

“Many of them were sold,” she admitted quietly. “People who couldn’t afford the mouths they already needed to feed, let alone a new baby. Brendol Hux - General Hux’s father, the guy who made the program - offered them a pretty hefty sum in exchange for their children. With other hungry bellies at home, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that they took the money.”

“Doesn’t make it any less sad,” Rey said nonchalantly. Jannah paused.

“No,” she said haltingly. “It doesn’t.”

The Kashyyyk catfish nearly made Chewie cry when she pulled it from her tote to gut and prepare. She laughed along with Lando as she kneaded fresh dough for bread, and Chewie hip-bumped her out of the way to  _ properly season the entree _ , since Rey admittedly had no real idea how to prepare proper Kashyyykian cuisine. Large, furry hands cut the vegetables until Lando complained that Chewie was shedding in the food, and he needed to leave, which caused a grumbling wookiee to drop angrily into an old chair that protested so loudly Lando wheezed with laughter. Jannah took over cutting veggies, telling a story about Lando nearly getting them killed on Had Abbadon because he outwitted a bar of gamblers at sabacc.

Maz looked on from the corner of the room, catching Rey’s eye every now and again as she prepared courses, a perpetually scrutinizing expression on her lined face. Rey’s discomfort grew as the night wore on, eating slowly, half of her attention on the conversation around her and the other half on Maz, who only joined in with random relative quips before her attention fell back to the former scavenger and her expression narrowed.

When the meal ended, Chewie, Jannah and Lando retired to the  _ Falcon _ for the night, promising to spend the morning with Rey before rushing to Sicemon for their next mission. Though none of them were involved with the political side of things as Rose, Finn and Poe were, they were planning on meeting the other three to offer additional support; since Sicemon had been one of the first worlds to align with the First Order, the downfall had caused something of a civil war to break out between the two native countries.

Leaving just Rey and Maz alone.

A long stretch of silence filled the space between them, weighing heavier and heavier the longer Maz spent staring, not speaking, just studying. Finally, when she was certain another second would suffocate her, Rey opened her mouth if only to break the spell of discomfort.

“I--”

“How are you doing?” Maz interrupted, her goggles now sitting atop her head as she relaxed against the wall. Rey stuttered, clamping her jaw shut and working it for a moment.

“Fine,” she said simply.

“Seems like it. Like you’re doing much better.” There was a point the old pirate was trying to make, Rey could tell in the way she spoke. It drifted through the room slowly, smoke rolling along the ground, lapping at Rey’s ankles in attempted discernment.

“I am,” Rey agreed slowly. “I don’t feel so heavy.” Maz stared at her for a long moment, the silence settling on her shoulders in a poor mimic of the cloak she’d shed the week before. Whatever Maz was trying to convey hung in the air like mist, every breath in forcing Rey to swallow the taste of the old pirate’s disappointment.

“Rey, why did you come to Tatooine?”

“To bury the Skywalker lightsabers,” Rey answered immediately, turning her back on Maz to begin washing the ridiculous number of dishes accumulated during their large meal. Another second spent facing Maz’s penetrating gaze would kill Rey, and she felt incredibly dull with her inability to grasp the humanoid’s seemingly obvious undertones.

“Why did you stay?”

Rey thought about it for a moment. She had a reason, she knows she did. Why did it feel so far away all of the sudden? This planet was strong in the Force, of course - something significant had happened here, tying this planet to… what, exactly?

The dish in her hand slipped from her grasp, would have shattered in the clay basin had Rey’s reflexes not been honed over so many years spent scavenging the desert at the threat of her own life. She set it down carefully, analyzing her memories.

The answer seemed just out of her reach. A recollection slithering away like sand through an hourglass, slipping as she reached for it, her fingertips barely brushing the edge. The verge, the cusp of a memory.

Like a ship passing in the night.

“I stayed because…” Why couldn’t she remember? It had seemed so obvious a few days ago. A desert so much like the one she’d grown to hate as she was reared, but so different, as well. A reverberation in the Force that reminded her of... something. Like seeing the alphabet lined up in certain ways that would form words against the paper of her ancient texts - she couldn’t recall learning how to read, only knew that she could.

“Rey?”

“Hang on.” Her head throbbed with warning as she attempted to probe deeper, focusing on the gaps in her memory that would probably form the answer to something she wasn’t even sure how to ask. After a moment of no further clarity, she sighed, resuming her washing of the dishes in the basin. “I can’t remember.”

Maz said nothing, but she could feel the disdain in the air, the prickle of eyes on the back of her neck as Rey tried to focus on the task at hand.

“You can’t remember,” the older woman deadpanned. Rey just shrugged.

“But I like it here,” she argued.

“In this desert.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Rey blew out another breath, handing clean dishes to BB-8 to put on the drying rack. What was with this new line of questioning? Maz had seemed completely content to let Rey stay the last time the old pirate had visited. “It’s peaceful,” she said after a moment. “I have a routine. Good company,” she chuckled, nudging at BB-8 with her foot. D-O spun around the other leg, stuttering and exclamation about not getting any attention and making Rey laugh.

Maz harrumphed, but said nothing else as Rey finished the dishes. Drying her hands on the towel, she finally turned back toward the wizened woman, giving her full attention once more. She’d not moved, still leaned against the wall near the entryway of the kitchen, arms crossed with one ankle kicked over the other. Completely relaxed in body with her face contorted in total frustration.

“What happened to you, that you’d forget so much?”

The day in the kitchen comes back, being keeled over on the ground with Rose shouting her name. The sound had been lost in a swirling vortex in her mind. There had been pain, too, in her chest, but it emulated differently now. Like she’d read it in a holonovel once, and empathy made her relate, but that hadn’t been  _ her  _ body or  _ her  _ mind affected by the torment.

“I accepted reality,” is what she says instead. The explanation feels too distant, and she’s not certain Maz wouldn’t get more angry, were Rey to attempt to dissect her new truth.

“So you’ve accepted that Ben Solo is dead?”

It takes far longer than it should for the sentence to register in Rey’s mind. A week ago, those same words, strung together the same way, would have brought Rey to her knees. And it didn’t make sense. Because it wasn’t as though she’d gotten over the loss of Ben. She still felt his empty presence in the back of her mind, but it was as though someone had thrown up a curtain over the doorway.

The distant dissonance of his absence fell on deaf ears. The ache in her chest where her heart once beat for him had been absolved when that weighted cloak had fallen from her shoulders. She felt anew, refreshed for the first time in her life.

“I… yes?” she hesitated, because no, no, she hadn’t, but how else could she possibly explain her indifference to his nonattendance? Ben was gone, half of her soul was  _ gone _ , why did she suddenly feel nothing?

“Very confident,” Maz muttered, pulling herself from the wall and turning toward the front entrance. Two steps, Rey felt her skin prickle up her spine, erupting in gooseflesh, like static electricity had rushed along her veins beneath the tissue. Warning bells sounded in her mind, and she grabbed Maz as the older woman began climbing the stairs, pulling her back by the arm and rushing up first.

Wind whipped harshly, blowing granules of sand through the narrow entryway. Rey shielded her eyes with her arm as she pushed up the last few feet and into the courtyard. The wind blew from the south, roughly thrashing sand this way and that as the unnatural storm battered against the natural breeze of the planet. She pulled her dust wrap off her shoulder, wrapping it around her mouth to protect her lungs.

The Force wrapped around her like a shield, coiled like a serpent, readying itself to strike as the gusts lashed sand in her face and hair, pricking her skin with tiny needle-points of pain. It followed as she moved up the stairs to the expanse of desert, twisting this way and that until she was able to settle on the horizon behind the hovel.

A depthless void curled in the distance, the source of the wind as it pelted sand and debris into her face. It roared in the Force, a soundless cry that reverberated in her bones, yanking her heart from one side to the other in the cavity of her chest.

Something within this storm  _ ached _ .

“Rey?” Lando called from the gangplank of the  _ Falcon _ , both arms up around his face and mouth. “It’s a sandstorm, go back inside!”   


“It’s not a sandstorm! Close the ramp!” she shouted as black clouds rolled in like oil, oozing across the landscape and swallowing the light cast by the setting suns behind her. The storm howled with longing, trudging closer as Rey circled her property to meet it.

“Rey!” Maz shouted, barreling up the stairs of the courtyard with a kerchief covering her mouth and her goggles shielding her eyes.

“Stay back!” Rey warned, scanning the inky black as it permeated the distance.

Something took shape there, straight ahead, the oily black curling and distorting. It jerked erratically, as though taking form caused it great pain. It rippled like water, like a pebble sunk into an oily puddle, shuddering as it grew larger and larger, until something solid stood.

I t was perhaps the size of a lothwolf, though the similarities ended there. It stood on multiple legs, too many to count with the sand whipping in her eyes. Though it appeared as a tangible thing, the oily smoke of its consistency moved constantly as it stepped forward, swirling and swishing in plumes that billowed to the ground and dissolved, too heavy for the air to support.

Rey’s lightsaber was in her hand before she thought to grab it, ignited in a pure yellow stream of energy. The thing pressed back on hind legs - six, total, she could count now - chest heaving in the air as it howled. The sound pierced her mind, echoing through her skull, a high-pitched keening that popped her ears and beat against the interior of her brain, a note threatening to shatter glass. She grit her teeth, pulling an offensive position, squinting her eyes against the onslaught of pelted sand as it heaved in an angry maelstrom between herself and the beast. It reared up across the distance, dropping down on its appendages as it readied to pounce. Rey moved closer as the thing did, slinking across the desert floor like a sentient puddle of ink, rippling and shimmering in the fading light. The storm followed the beast, wind ripping across the breadth, kicking sand into Rey’s exposed skin.

She rushed as the creature leapt into the air, covering the distance in long strides, the legs blending and morphing together until they blurred into one, until the beast stalked as a single bulbous globule of gelatinous oil. It moved with the Force, a creature borne of the same energy that flowed through her veins, energy that once belonged to--

The beast jumped, extending claws from the black nothing that created its form. It aimed straight down, legs stretched, howling that same noiseless scream as Rey brought her saber up, hoping to shear the thing clean in half.

It disappeared in a puff of smoke as it touched the blade, the sensation crawling across across her skin and leaving greasy trails in its wake. Hands shaking, she looked up at where the thing just was, where an empty sky now sat, devoid of the darkness that had encompassed it only a moment before. Her next breath was an inhale of the vestiges of smoke, something endlessly sad sitting in her lungs with the inhale before exhaled, leaving her feeling a sense of melancholy. Her heart thundered in her chest, a beat erratic, like it was reaching for something and anguished when it couldn’t be reached.

Like she was missing something she’d already forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yo, whaddup.
> 
> It's me. Ya gurl.
> 
> Comin' atcha with plot development.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!
> 
> Love you guys, see you soon <3


	10. Shifting Weight

_He’s able to truly assess the passing of time on this planet._

_There are no day cycles, the planet’s surface lit constantly with that same indescribable glow that seemingly comes from the Force itself. But hours are trackable now, pass at the same steady speed he’d grown accustomed to during his life. He can tell how many days have passed since his arrival, since his mother visited._

_The phantom no longer stalks him. He thinks he feels her, at times, but it’s as though she’s accomplished what she set out to do, and has since dispersed back to wherever it was she’d originated._

_Sleep eludes him in this state, and food bears no temptation, so Ben finds himself meditating more often than not. The ability to follow time also means that he’s able to properly interpret how much is passing during this corporeal in-between trial, and it takes merely days for the stretch of eternity to become daunting._

_Much of his time in meditation is spent focusing on the planet. The way it ebbs and flows with Force, more power than he can comprehend. He gets flashes of memory at times, shards of glass from a shattered mosaic of occurrence that he has no idea how to piece together. Ethereal beings, cohabitation, a fight of the ages, but nothing substantial._

_These mysteries keep his thoughts from dwelling too long on Rey. Allowing himself even a moment of rest, his mind strays to her like a magnet to its opposite charge._

_He searches for her, at times, in the back of his mind. The way the phantom taught him, looking for that silver string that would pull them together. But it’s as though his seeing her on the_ Falcon _was a singular instance, finding her for just long enough to reassure her of his post-demise consciousness before he’s kept away once more._

_Keeping her holding on, when he knows that all she must do is let go._

_He explores the planet when meditation is unthinkable after so many hours. It is a vast, expansive place, filled with more terrains than should be possible. Like every ecosystem originated here before setting off to settle around the galaxy. He walks along floating mountains, dives into underground caves, swims in the pools of waterfalls with no origin. Barren, Force-capped trees tangle limbs with lush green forests, polar opposites existing harmoniously. No matter how far he goes, he never sees the same thing twice._

_There is a temple here. He sees it from a distance, standing atop one of the suspended mountaintops, and the closest feeling he’s had to excitement since his demise permeates his mind. Practically ripping through the foliage, he moves closer, ducking both types of forest in his drive to learn more of this planet where he now finds himself imprisoned._

_Approaching the valley where he was certain the temple had been, he stops, disbelief clouding his mind. It is empty, barren of everything but rolling grass and swaying flowers rustled by the soft breeze that blows from the south._

_Feeling somewhat foolish, Ben picks the highest tree and climbs, something he’s not done since he was a child and fell from the top of a tree in the front yard of his childhood home on Chandrila. Had he not narrowly managed to catch himself with the Force – clumsily, as his mother had hardly begun to teach him what he was capable of - the impact likely would have broken a couple of bones._

_He shrugs off the memory and climbs until he can see over the sloping valley, the mixture of green and white that make up the different types of forest giving way to more levitating mountain ranges._

_And there, in the distance; the temple._

_“That’s ridiculous,” he says to himself, jumping from the top of the tree and using the Force to catch himself on the ground. He uses the momentum to propel himself faster through the wood, the Force aiding his steps, catching branches before they can whip his face._

_He stands in the same meadow where he knows with absolute certainty the temple had just sat._

_Except it was empty._

_“Things move here,” the phantom voice says, nearly making Ben lose his grip on the tree he’d scaled to investigate. “The terrain is never the same, and you’ll find that you can never explore the same place twice.”_

_“Where have you been?” he says, hating how accusatory his voice sounds. The isolation had been nearly suffocating, and had he not had meditating to turn to when it weighed and pressed on him, he likely would have gone mad by now._

_“Busy,” the voice responds simply. “Yours is not the only errant soul I commune with.”_

_"_ _It’s been weeks,” he insists as he jumps down, looking for the source of the voice in new light. Before, it had been his assumption that he could not see her because there was nothing to see in the vast emptiness between worlds. Now, as he searches empty land, he realizes that she’s shielding herself on purpose._

_“Then I’ve been very busy,” she corrects, and he hears the smile in her voice. “Not to worry, though. My time spent with your better half has come to a close. You have my undivided attention, no matter how much you don’t want it.”_

_Ben paused. “You’ve been with Rey?”_

_"_ _Nearly as stubborn as you, that one,” the voice quips, but there is a warmth of affection in her tone. “She’s been exhausting herself, trying to research some way to bring you back from the dead.”_

_Ben sighs, collapsing beneath the tree he’d climbed minutes before, his investigation of the mysterious moving temple momentarily forgotten. He leans against the bark, head against the rough texture._

_“A fruitless endeavor,” he says slowly. The voice just hums, but he takes it as a sound of agreement. “How is she otherwise?”_

_“About as good as you’d expect,” the voice responds, sounding just next to him, as though she, too, was lounging beneath the tree with him. “A little broken, but confident that her analyses will turn up a positive conclusion.” Ben’s head thunks against the trunk of the tree._

_“I’ve been meditating, as you told me, but I am not able to find the link that connects us,” Ben says after a few moments of quiet. “It was there, that initial time, and since it’s as though the bond has closed.”_

_“It has,” the voice responds. “She closed it. Your absence proved too difficult for her, and she’s shut herself off.” Ben blinked, wishing desperately he could look up on the face of his afterlife tormentor. She sounds so blasé about his plight and Rey’s melancholy. It was very difficult to get angry with empty air. “She doesn’t realize that shutting herself off to you is doing you both more harm than good.”_

_Difficult, but not impossible._

_“Why didn’t you say anything to her?” Ben nearly shouts into the void. “If she’s harming herself, you need to put a stop to it!”_

_“Hey, now,” the voice says defensively, but it sounds like a façade even to his ears. Like she’s amused by his outburst. “Not that that is my responsibility in any sense, it’s also very rude of you to throw accusations at me. Where do you think I’ve been these weeks? Since clearly I have not been spending time with my fourth-favorite Skywalker.” Ben’s brow furrows._

_“What…?”_

_“Fifth, actually,” the voice corrects, “as Rey calls herself Skywalker now.”_

_She what? Why?_

_“Or sixth, if we’re counting married partners,” the phantom continues nonchalantly. He can hear the smile in her voice._

_“You knew my family?”_

_“I know your family,” the voice agrees and corrects at the same time. “Some more than others, but I’ve met each of them.”_

_“I’ve never met you, prior to all this,” Ben gestures weakly at the surreal forest around them. “I’d remember your voice.”_

_The ghost says nothing for a long moment, and Ben thinks she’s left him again. He stands, lips pursed._

_“You should head back the direction from which you came,” the voice says after long minutes, most of which Ben spent contemplating whether he wanted to hike more or sit and meditate in the meadow where the temple had been before. “There is a scar in the Force there. It’s the only place on this planet that remains consistent, no matter what else moves. You’ll want to be there in a matter of hours.”_

_He questions her, but the phantom has either gone silent or moved on. With no reason to disobey besides his hubris, Ben follows what he believes the voice considered advice, retracing his steps through the forest toward the floating mountain ranges._

_She was right. He’d never gone back, had only ever gone forward, but nothing is the same as he hikes through the brush. No markers, no footprints of his own making, nothing but an unknown stretch of forest. He uses the Force to guide him, but even it turns him in circles a couple of times before righting his internal compass, pushing him through landscapes he cannot properly appreciate._

_Eventually, he stumbles into an open meadow not dissimilar to the one he’d seen the temple in. The plant life here grows in contrasting, explosive colors, vibrant hues mixing with deep shades that seem to swallow light. He stands there, unsure of why the voice would imply his return here._

_After a few more minutes of confusion, Ben sighed, sinking into a cross-legged pose on the ground and opening his mind to the Force. It flows like water here, a seamless river that rushes around a four-dimensional loop, one part flowing into the next until a never-ending cycle circulates, together with the rest of the planet but separate at the same time._

_There’s a small obstruction – a boulder, planted in the middle of the river. The Force flows around it undisturbed, its current continuing despite the small infraction. Curiously, Ben stretched his own Force, like fingertips reaching to pull a stone from the river. He brushes the obstacle, not realizing there was something else – another Force on the other side, reaching as well._

 _It filled his mind and his heart all at once, her power and Light burning through his senses until all he can see, hear, smell,_ taste _is her._

 _G_ _asping back into himself, Ben stands, searching desperately for the source, for the well, for—_

_Rey._

_Stumbling, Ben rushes through the meadow, stopping in the middle. The way the Force flows here keeps him from finding her, hidden beneath the flowing river that cascades in every direction all at once. He stands helplessly, searching the wood, the sky, the grass, as though she’d fallen into the planet itself and embraced him from every direction._

_The bond opened in his mind, and he felt her curiosity, her awe as she explored this place. He saw it through her eyes – not the vibrant colors he could see, but a contrasting black and white, like looking directly into a sun and then pressing your fingertips against your closed eyelids. She moved unconsciously, tethered, following a map laid out in her mind with a big red ‘X’ where he stood. Tripping over tree roots and getting her hair caught in twigs. She smiled all the while, he could feel it in his cheeks._

_He could not look for her. She had to find him._

_It took years, but was perhaps another minute or two before she broke through the underbrush, eyes searching until they locked on him. Rooted to the spot, Ben lost his breath as she cocked her head to one side, eyes widening when she realized he stood there._

_“Ben?” she whispered, moving closer slowly, like approaching a wounded, feral animal._

_“Rey,” he gasped, his knees threatening to give out. Her entire being lit up like a beacon calling him home, a smile so bright it was nearly blinding as she rushed toward him. He took steps toward her, as well, nearly crying with relief when he could look into her depthless hazel eyes._

_"_ _How is this possible?” she asked, her hands twitching, as though she wanted to touch him but was holding back. Please, don’t hold back. “How are you here? In my dream?”_

_Dream?_

_The phantom’s voice came back to him, how she’d completed her time with his other half. How he’d thrown unnecessary accusations at her._

_"_ _You opened back up to me,” he nearly choked. “You closed the bond, but you opened it again.”_

_Rey looked down sheepishly and no, no, that wouldn’t do. His fingertips trailed along the edge of her jaw, hands moving to touch her before he could give them the command, and he tilted her face back until she looked upon him once more. Hesitantly, her own hands came up, twitching against his skin until they encircled his wrists._

_“All I can feel is emptiness when it’s open,” she admitted, and he knows, gods he knows, he feels it too. The echoing longing in the back of his mind where she was meant to reside. “But I felt nothing when it was closed. The emptiness was preferable.”_

_“Rey,” he brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, the fingertips of his other hand spreading against the side of her neck._

_“And even when it’s closed, the hurt doesn’t go away,” she says softly, and he watches in horror as her eyes fill with tears. They spill over, but she doesn’t look away again, forcing him to watch her pain as it cascades in rivulets down her cheeks. “I ache constantly, Ben. I’ve never felt pain like this. It’s like I was torn in two, and that piece of me is still connected, but it died. Like I’m being forced to carry around a corpse.”_

_“I’m sorry,” he breathes, thumbs brushing the tears from her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Rey.”_

_She shakes her head, pulling away from his touch and folding in on herself, and he feels her absence in his bones, but still she doesn’t look away. “How could you do that to me? How could you just… just leave me like that?” Her eyes narrow as she feeds into her anger. “How could you take away my choice? I knew I would die, and I accepted that! Why would you take that from me?”_

_He could feel himself responding to her anger even as he tamped it down. Not now._

_“I’m sorry,” he repeated, reaching for her, but she steps back, the motion tearing at his heart. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Rey. I’m selfish.”_

_Her jaw trembled, the anger bleeding away with her tears. “Selfish?”_

_“You died,” he clarified. “And I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t live in a world where you didn’t exist. It didn’t make sense to me. I brought you back because for me, death was an easier alternative.”_

_“That’s not fair,” she shakes her head. “That’s not fair, Ben! You… You don’t have any idea what it’s like, living in that world, knowing that the other half of me is somewhere else!”_

_“I do know what that’s like,” he says pursing his lips. Gesturing around them, at the beautiful, terrifyingly empty landscape, he works his jaw for a moment. “I have to exist here without you, as well.”_

_She does take in their surroundings, eyes on the landscape for a moment before they find him again, like she can’t bear to look away for longer than a second. Which is perfectly fine with him – he can’t bear it, either. “Where is this place?”_

_“I don’t know,” he responded carefully. “My own personal hell, I’d assumed, until you got here.”_

_“How did you get here?”_

_Ben shrugged, moving toward her again, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t immediately shy away. His scavenger, so afraid of touch after so long starved of it. He brought his hands up slowly, resting them on her shoulders. Her breath stuttered as he touched her, then let out slowly, like she’d been waiting for this, craving it the same way he had. “I wasn’t anywhere, and then I was just here.”_

_“Alone?”_

_“Mostly,” he shrugged again, stepping even closer to her, until there was barely any space between them._

_“You were on the_ Falcon _,” she recalls slowly. “When I begged you for a sign, you were there to give me one.”_

 _"_ _I was,” he agreed._

_“You’ve been here since?”_

_“Mostly,” he says again, and she breathes out slowly, glancing around again before her eyes train on his._

_“The shadows are changing,” she altered the subject. Ben looks around at the unchanged landscape around them. “They’re growing longer. Will they swallow this place?”_

_“I don’t see what you see,” he admitted. “But I’ll still be here, even after you’re gone.”_

_“I’m not ready to go,” her voice breaks, and his heart cracks open like an egg. “I’m alone there. How can I just leave you behind?”_

_“You’re not,” he reassures her, and he feels as the Force changes directions, rushing over that small barrier in the flow instead of around it, calling her back home. “Rey, you could never leave me. Just as I’ll never leave you. I’m right here, always.”_

_Her eyes fill with tears anew. “I’ll dream again tomorrow, and I’ll look for you, Ben, I promise. I won’t close the bond again, I swear.”_

_“I know, cyar’ika,” he agrees, the name falling from his tongue like silk. It felt natural in his mouth, tasted sweetly, like it belonged there though he’d never spoken it aloud before. “I know.” Her hands reach up, cupping his jaw and pulling him to her for a kiss that surprises him nearly as much as the first. He kisses her back for a long moment, savoring her in a way he couldn’t the last time, with his mind and body fading from the living realm so quickly._

_She’s pure and perfect in his arms, and he tastes her power, her affection, her loneliness as she surrounds and consumes him completely. His heart, a faint echo in his chest, stutters, picking up speed from the slow thrum, and he cannot comprehend how, even in this state, she makes his heart race._

_In a burst of light, she disappears, ripped away much the same way she used to be when the Force connected them through their bond._

_He stands alone in the meadow for a stretch of time, listening to the rushing of water from a nearby creek, feeling for the differentiation of Force, the obstruction he’d touched that led her to him. It flowed cleanly now, the obstacle nonexistent, and he surmises that it must only make an appearance when she’s asleep and the bond is open._

_He spends most of the day meditating, never straying far from their shared space, afraid he’d get too turned around if he wandered and wouldn’t be unable to find her when she returned, as promised. Toward the end, when the timing seemed appropriate, he reached into the Force, feeling for the obstruction and finding it another hour later._

_Her Force filled him once more, breathing Light into his heart as she pulled on the thread of their bond and followed it to him. Once she saw him, she closed the distance in an excited run, her fingertips shaking with excitement and tentativeness as they reached for him._

_“Ben?” she asked in that same breathless, disbelieving voice, her fingers against the solid muscle of his chest. He felt his brow furrow as confusion rocked against his ribs, watched as she looked around curiously, eyes wide and expression open. Like exploring a new place, a place she’d never been before. Like she hadn’t been here just the night before._

_His heart broke completely when she opened her mouth again, filling him with a new sort of longing, a sadness permeable in their shared space, even with wonder in her tone when her eyes finally came back to rest on him, none the wiser to his ache._

_"_ _Where are we?”_

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!
> 
> Yo whaddup it's ya gurl makeshiftcandy comin' atchu with a new chapter.
> 
> The above art was drawn by the absolutely incredible [MevrouwRoze](https://mevrouwrozestudios.tumblr.com) on Tumblr for Chapter 2 of my fic, the scene where Rey sees Ben in the meadow.  
> Obviously that wasn't the first time (please see above) but.  
> Definitely take a look, her art is GORGEOUS.
> 
> Listen no one has ever given me fanart before and I nearly CRIED, I am not too proud to admit it.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Another look into Ben's life on the "unknown planet". 
> 
> Let me know what you think! I love reading your comments, and I'm sorry it takes me so long to get back to you at times.
> 
> Love you guys! See you next time! <3


	11. Second Wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Lost Without You by Freya Ridings goes well with this chapter (and the whole Reylo vibe in general tbh)

Something about the beast had felt terribly familiar.

This was the only thought on Rey’s mind as she worked through the days following the odd occurrence. Lando, Jannah and Chewie had rushed out once the unexplainable storm had dissipated, worriedly checking to make sure Rey walked away from the confrontation unscathed. There had been no injuries, outside of a few small scratches from the sand that would heal on their own.

Maz had shown no outward concern, eyes narrowed as the others exclaimed about the smoking beast, the way it had moved and blended in a blur of evaporated oil. Her small mouth had remained shut the rest of the night, as well as the following morning, nothing but eyes trained on Rey, openly staring as the others engaged in lighthearted conversation about upcoming missions, as Jannah forced Rey to put bandages over the small scrapes on her arms and face, as Lando not-so-slyly slid credits into Rey’s pouch when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

When they departed, Maz put a careful hand on Rey’s forearm, giving her that same quizzical stare before sighing deeply, shaking her head, and making her way up the gangplank of the  _ Falcon _ .

Whatever Maz seemed so desperate to convey was lost on Rey, but it left her completely befuddled regardless. Still, she didn’t dwell, passing her time cleaning the hovel now that the electricity was properly restored. Farming moisture was an easier process with all of the equipment working at full capacity again, and Rey began lugging gallons of water to the town square in Mos Eisley to sell, even though she had enough credits to support her for a number of years, with her spoils inherited from winning the war.

Rebuilding the Republic was a slow-moving process, but Rey, the Last Jedi, Hero of the Galaxy, who destroyed the sickness that was Emperor Palpatine, was handsomely compensated by the Resistance for her efforts, no matter how vehemently she tried to refuse. She didn’t need more than necessary to survive, and the credits could be put to better use, but Poe had waved off her protests and funded a small metal chip card she was meant to keep in her pouch at all times. As far as she knew, he was still funneling money onto it weekly.

The card sat unused, collecting dust in the small chest of personal belongings she had hidden beneath her bed, along with Ben Solo’s torn clothing, a pendant that had belonged to Leia, the small silver compass she’d retrieved from Ahch-To after Luke’s death, and the wayfinder to Exegol she’d kept after her journey to defeat Palpatine. Rather, she made her money fixing odds and ends around the city when she’d first moved, before Lando started visiting and giving her what she assumed he viewed as some type of allowance in physical credits, which made her slightly less uncomfortable than the hidden metallic card.

The amount was small enough and happened so sparingly that she seldom fought the old smuggler. The first time she caught him trying to leave a pile of money on her counter, she’d confronted him, and he told her that even she needed enough to survive, and he had more money than he knew what to do with, anyway.

Rey knew it was deeper than that, even without having to read the old man’s mind. She’d lost her parents, been cast to rot in a desert, found something akin to parental figures much later, only to have them ripped from her, as well. In turn, she’d shed her family name in favor of the only family she’d known, despite how short a time she did have them.

Lando, being Han’s closest friend, having been beside Luke and Leia when they lay waste to the Empire, paving the stepping stones of the New Republic, looked upon her not as a Palpatine, but as another Skywalker orphan for whom he felt responsible.

Had Ben lived, eventually finding forgiveness in Lando’s eyes for Han’s death, he’d certainly be on the receiving end of a treatment much the same, at least until the two of them could stand up on their own again.

Ben was another conundrum altogether.

Until her conversation with Maz, Rey had dwelled little on her soul’s wayward partner. The days and weeks had passed in a blur of busying herself with repairs to the X-Wing, the Lars homestead, researching the Jedi religion, drawing the blueprints for what may someday become a new temple to teach her own students alongside Finn.

The alternate plane where she’d discovered Ben resided was buried beneath new, learned information, beneath the tinge of sparks running up her fingertips as she rewired the electricity in the hovel until it ran smoothly, beneath the ache in her muscles as she properly farmed water from the depths of the desert for the first time, beneath the quick addition of numbers in her head as she bartered that water in the city.

And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Ben falling between the crevices should make her feel immeasurably, unbearably guilty. That she should dedicate her time to finding him, meditating to re-enter that dreamscape where he lives, researching not the Jedi, but the inevitable way she was going to bring him back, as it had been when she had first come to settle on this planet.

But, for the life of her, she could not find the drive to do so. Guilt was lost, flung into the sea like Ben’s saber on Kef Bir. Her knowledge that she had spent much of her time looking into his resurrection in the beginning was more text than anything - she could not remember what she had done, only knew it had happened, as though she’d read and absorbed it alongside the Jedi texts, not actively lived through it.

Finn, Rose and Poe came back to visit, trepidation heavy in the air until Rey had smiled, had talked jovially, the way she had once, long before Exegol. She and Finn discussed, very briefly, their short-lived fight, apologies were exchanged, and he’d left brighter than she’d seen him since she first touched planetside on Tatooine. They’d even carved out time in their brief visit to give him the second half of his last Force lesson - meditating - so he could practice during the following weeks as he worked through the galaxy.

Things were completely, perfectly  _ normal _ . She felt much like her old self, in a way she hadn’t since she left Jakku and her universe was turned upside down by Finn, Han, Chewie --

_ Ben _ .

Hadn’t it hurt, when he’d been gone? Not even after Exegol -  _ before _ , when she’d laid in her bunk on Ajan Kloss, the bond thrumming with life and connection and  _ Force _ in the back of her mind, an itch she couldn’t scratch, until it inevitably connected them across space and time, lying beside one another, dutifully ignoring each other until they couldn’t anymore. Until they devolved into tears on her end and anger on his. Or, more and more often as time progressed, until they whispered softly across the galaxy, speaking star systems to life in hushed tones, discussing everything and nothing outside of the war that plagued the pregnant space between them.

Why, then, could she not remember that pain? And more, why didn’t she feel that same gut-wrenching guilt she had felt  _ because _ she couldn’t remember that pain? It was as though someone had taken a knife and cut her open, draining away the negativity like poison from a snakebite.

Finn had told her how happy he was she was back to her old self. Poe had congratulated her on finally finishing rewiring her home, and had helped her pump out a few days’ worth of water.

Rose had…

Rose had smiled pensively and said little, but held Rey’s hand for a long moment before they left, leaning in and pressing her forehead to Rey’s shoulder in a gesture of comfort that Rey didn’t feel she needed.

“Grief is a funny thing, isn’t it?” the small mechanic had said softly, so only the two of them could hear. “We have moments, where it feels like the pool we’ve been swimming in for ages is empty - and then it fills up, and it’s like we have to start all over again.”

Rey was absolutely certain her pool wouldn’t be refilling anytime soon, but her certainty itself came from a muddled place of confusion. Because she knew, somehow, that that grief was just…  _ gone _ . But had no idea  _ how _ she knew or  _ where  _ it went. It had drained away along with the guilt, leaving a puddle of debilitating emotion in the aether.

Why, then, is she not more alarmed?

The feeling of dropping that two-hundred pound cloak comes back, but she doesn’t dwell, elbow-deep in the guts of Luke’s X-Wing as she reroutes the hyperspace engine to drain fuel into a reserve, which will allow the ship to travel a significantly longer distance without needing to stop to refuel. She doesn’t dwell, absorbed in the Jedi texts as they discuss the possibilities of fast-distance travel using the Force alone, not a projection but a physical movement of self. She doesn’t dwell as she revamps D-O’s circulatory board, replacing a damaged chip and completely ridding the small droid of his stutter.

She doesn’t dwell, and then she does.

Her canteen, she realizes nearly three weeks later, as she’s hiking through the desert for the first time in ages, must have been left behind in the cave where she’d fallen through the runes. With a heavy sigh, she makes her way back, BB-8 and D-O both beeping in relief when she loads them onto the speeder. They zip through the desert, taking the narrow passage between the cliffs into the mouth of the cave, where Rey leaves the speeder to delve underground, using her lightsaber to light the way.

It reminds her, abruptly, of the first time she and BB-8 had stumbled upon this place, chasing a feeling, a sentiment that permeated her skin and lungs like alphabetized vapor in a language of information she couldn’t decode. The Force had called her like a siren, pressing her to  _ feel _ that which she couldn’t see. She’d followed like a loyal dog, trailing the Force, a derelict sycophant with a dictator that spoke in tongues.

And it led her here.

Once more, as soon as she clicked on the lanterns pinned to the stone walls, she was left awed by the expanse of hieroglyphs along the floor, the runes taking the shape of a map along the furthest wall. She approached slowly, cautious, as though the wall would open up and swallow her all over again if she got too close.

Why was she afraid of that?

But the stone was cool and solid against her palm as she laid her hand against it, roughened when she dragged her fingertips up. The image distorted, growing blurry for a moment, and she blinked to clear her eyes, warm tears falling down her cheeks.

_ Why am I crying? _

BB-8 beeped the same question at her, and she shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she admitted softly, tracing the patterns of the map, but the tears didn’t ebb, even if the emotion from where they originated was lost.

It was as though she was standing on a precipice. A truth far greater than she realized dwelled in the dark cavern far below her feet. All she needed to do was take a step and she would plunge into an infinite reality she was terrified to face. Something incredible laid before her, in that barren wasteland of nothing, if she had the strength to reach out and take it.

She stepped back.

“I know this map,” she said out loud, looking at the full scripture.

“You said that last time,” D-O told her, and she glanced down at the droid. Because she didn’t remember that, hardly remembered being here. Why couldn’t she remember? Why didn’t she  _ care _ that she couldn’t remember?

“It’s in one of the volumes of the Jedi text,” she continued, and D-O grumbled dismally that she had ignored him. “Or… Or, more than one?” The memories were muddled, clouding together and hiding, and searching through them was like trying to clear a fog. But she’s  _ seen this _ , she knows she has.

Last time, she’d pressed her energy into the wall and fallen through. Her own Force, the mixture of herself and Ben that lived in her body and her heart, had been called and lured by the Force on the other side of this wall.

The match, the perfect other half of her energy signature.

Ben.

“The place where it leads,” she breathed slowly, trying not to let her excitement climb too high. “It took me there. Took me to…”

She spun on her heel, barreling out of the cave as BB-8 squawked behind her and D-O reminded her of the canteen that she couldn’t care less about, not anymore. Something was rising within her, replacing whatever it was she had lost that took away her drive to find Ben. It filled her like a water filled a vase, keeping the flowers of hope alive in her chest as she ran through the dark toward the entrance of the cave. Every inhale watered the plants taking root in her lungs, every step toward the mouth grew the garden.

The empty space in the back of her mind where Ben once lived pulsed, a broken dissonance of a heartbeat that stuttered to life, waking up for the first time in weeks. She heard her droids behind her, beeping and yelling at her to slow down, but she couldn’t. The cloak she’d dropped, that two-hundred pound upset she’d shed like a second skin was stitching itself back together with something altogether lighter, something like…

Excitement.

Her exhilarated rush blinded her to the darkness that had permeated outside the cave, making the breakthrough into subdued daylight that much more staggering when she emerged. Her feet skidded in the sand as she pulled to an unexpected stop, staring first up at the dark, unnatural clouds above the surrounding cliffs before her eyes fell slowly to the dysmorphic blob of gelatinous oil that stood across the small field of sand. It sweltered and moved like suspended water, having no form at all before shuddering through shaping itself.

For a moment, even from the distance, it almost appeared as a shape she recognized. Something she’d seen long ago, in this same cave, as it led her deeper and deeper into the cavern, to the map. A shape she’d yearned for.

But, no. She blinked, and it had fallen into the same animalistic contour on six legs, stretching, and it seemed larger, somehow. No longer a lothwolf, but a happabore, rearing up on hind legs, screeching that same silent scream that echoed against the interior of her skull. Rey shuddered, pulling her saber into her hand, igniting the yellow stream despite the beast clearly having been unaffected the last time she’d held her weapon against it.

It didn’t charge all at once this time. It slithered and moved, an unnatural, immobilized lake of oil, pawing at the ground as it whined a blaring siren in her mind. The familiarity of the beast nearly knocked the air from her lungs as it paced the opposite side of the sandy meadow, and she felt the flowers that had bloomed there begin to wilt as she breathed the same air as the storm.

No. That hope was not allowed to die. It was the first time in weeks she felt anything other than muted peace, and it would not fall away to whatever acceptance had plagued her since she was last in this cavern.

She moved closer, and the beast  _ roared _ , Rey flinching against the onslaught of noiseless shrieking in her head. The Force trembled violently in the space between them, her light and it’s Dark bleeding into one another, forming an unseen gray smoke between herself and the monster. It bled against the ground, spilling back, attempting to touch them both.

The beast continued to stalk, pacing back and forth opposite Rey. She took another step forward, and the beast reared, low to the ground as if waiting for her to make the first strike. She twirled her saber, listening to the hum of her blade as it glided through the air, if only to focus on something other than the incessant rumbling of the beast that permeated every available inch of her mind.

“Come on,” she called across the ring. “Fight me, then!”

The beast seemed to wheeze at her threat, stuttering in its movement like it wasn’t expecting her to talk. It didn’t stray for long, continuing it’s stalking, back and forth pace, not moving closer but remaining a constant reminder of its own existence. Still waiting for her to strike first, waiting for her to rush.

If she brought her blade down against it, would it disappear as it had before?

The beast reared, screeching, shuddering as it morphed. The clouds above grew darker, closer, centralizing above the creature, becoming more and more solid and substantial as they closed together.

The Force flowed around the creature with that same oily substance it seemed to be made of, the beast borne of the Force itself. It pulled the energy of the planet around itself, sucking in the Light and the Gray and oozing that blackened blood in its place, creating a dissected wound in the space around it where the Force itself screamed in agony.

Sucking the very air into a black hole.

Leaving invisible of filth on her skin.

Anger rising, Rey planted her feet, blade held deftly in two hands as she finally gave the beast what it seemed to crave – first attack. It screamed with the Force, two voices becoming one, an echo in her skull that nearly had her doubled over. She rushed just as the beast did, zig-zagging across the open area, trying to confuse her, but the energy around the thing followed it, moving as it moved, helping her predict its next step.

She ducked a swiped claw, skidding on her knees and standing upright as the beast jumped away from her swinging saber. Twirling, she slashed open air where its inky torso had been a moment before, the thing lunging to the right to escape her blade.

Like it knew her next move before she made it.

“What are you!?” she screamed at it, and the thing chortled as though it wanted to laugh. Her next three swings were batted away like annoying flies, the beast rearing, dodging despite it’s huge stature, jumping around and over. Her saber whirled through empty air, and Rey nearly screamed in frustration.

Gritting her teeth, Rey took a slow breath, reaching inside of her mind. She can’t beat it as herself; how would it fair against someone else? Within her, her own Force mixed so beautifully with Ben’s, creating something balanced, something indescribable. It protested, crying as she pulled only his energy, separating two halves and shoving hers to one side, letting his Force alone flow into her veins anew.

The grip on her saber grew tighter, the weight suddenly too light in her hands. Her own Light was muted, obstructed by his mixture of Light-Gray, the person he had been when his Force had reanimated her. Legs widened, a heavier stance of offense, knees bent with dominant leg back instead of forward. Dropping one hand from the hilt.

The emptiness in the back of her mind blew open and filled with his ghost as she let him take over her limbs. Becoming a passenger to her own actions, she watched as the saber flipped with muscle memory, coming up underside, swiping before taking a heavy turn. Using one hand, she flipped the hilt with her fingers, all of her strength bearing down in a solid swipe.

The beast roared in confusion, her moves suddenly unpredictable, steered by a Force it clearly didn’t recognize. Rey felt herself smirk the barest amount as she flipped around from a heavy lunge of black oil, feet skidding across the dirt and sand, never stopping as she whipped the blade around and plunged it into the body of the beast.

It screamed before disintegrating in a puff of smoke.

With her next breath, her own Force bled back into her body, filling the gaps and spaces Ben’s had left behind. She gasped, falling to one knee, extinguishing the saber as her blood rushed in her ears like a river from a broken dam. Her heart hammered against the inside of her ribs, beating for two, and tears stung in her eyes.

_ Incredible, Rey. _

She couldn’t help but smile.

On shaking feet, she pulled herself back to standing, counting her breaths in and out to try and slow her heart rate. BB-8 and D-O were shaking violently behind her, the action intended to convey their fear, and Rey couldn’t help but smile at their attempt. Her canteen rattled in BB-8’s grasp, and Rey reached down, pulling it from his tiny wired fingers and latching it to her pouch.

“Come on,” she said, trying to remain nonchalant even as her confusion mounted higher and higher. “We have research to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey yo waddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, jumping in late as hell to provide the best readers in the galaxy (my readers) with an update.
> 
> I know I usually post over the weekend, but I was in San Diego Thursday - Sunday with my best friend (I live in the San Francisco Bay, please don't stalk me lmfao) because we were celebrating my birthday!
> 
> Today is my actual birthday, so my gift to you all is this chapter. Subtitled: "Rey Is Realizing Things."
> 
> Like Kylie Jenner in 2016, y'all.
> 
> Anyway! Lemme know what you think, I'm anxiously awaiting your comments.
> 
> I'm also like .02 seconds away from falling asleep bc it's 8PM and I've been up since 2AM literally so give me something nice to wake up to!
> 
> Love you guys! See you next time!!! <3


	12. Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Thinking About You by Big Scary pairs well with this chapter.

_ The Force sighed with a resigned sadness that pulled Ben from sleep, making his heart ache with an unfamiliar, infinitely melancholy feeling he’d never before experienced. He rolled onto his back, sitting up and listening, the way Uncle Luke had tried to teach him. After a moment, the Force sighed again, breathing its soft sob beneath his doorframe. Climbing out of bed, Ben pressed his ear against the door, as if he could hear the Force through the pneumatic steel barrier. _

_ The Force spoke no more. However, muffled behind the door, he could hear a soft, tempered sound. It paused, then picked back up, paused again. Following the tugging on his heart, Ben opened the door, tip-toeing down the hallway as quietly as possible. The rest of the house was completely dark, so it was easy to follow the stream of light at the end of the hallway. He paused just outside, pressing a hand against the cool exterior of his parents’ bedroom door and waiting a moment. _

_ That same soft sound came from the other side, and the Force urged him forward, that feeling of sadness washing over him once more, making his jaw wobble with suppressed tears. _

_ He slid the door open, peering around the edge of the frame. His mother sat in the center of the bed along the opposite wall, tears streaming down her cheeks as she flipped through a datapad in her lap. He crept around the corner, pursing his lips and watching her as she wiped away her tears. _

_ " _ _ Momma?” Leia startled, looking up from where she’d been engrossed in her datapad. Her hair, normally up in intricate braids, was down in loose waves around her hips, one half of her head started, as though she’d gone to start a new style and given up. _

_ “Oh, my sweet boy,” Leia gave him a watery smile, gesturing for him to join her. Stubby legs kicked as he struggled onto the bed, much taller than his own, until Leia laughed and hoisted him up with her hands beneath his armpits, pulling him into her lap. He curled up there, and she laid her chin on his head, rocking him back and forth. “Sorry I woke you up.” _

_ “Are you sad because Dad left?” Han had flown off just that morning with Uncle Chewie and Uncle Luke, on their way to Mandalore to hunt down some Jedi artifacts the Mandalorian government had suggested they might have in a vault somewhere. He said they’d be back in a few days, but Ben knew that he’d probably be gone a lot longer. He almost always was. Especially when him and Mom were fighting. _

_ “No, no,” Leia murmured, pulling Ben tighter against her chest. She didn’t say anything for a long moment; then, softly, “Ben, do you know what grief is?” _

_ That word seemed familiar, like he’d heard it in a conversation once, but he didn’t know what it meant, so he shook his head. Leia sighed against his back, burying her nose in his hair and making him tickle. He wanted to squirm away, but he was pretty sure his mom needed him, so he stayed put, resisting the urge to scratch by digging his nails into his palms. _

_ “Do you remember when you lost your Y-Wing model when we were at the lakehouse on Naboo?” Ben nodded, the reminder hitting him squarely in the chest. It had been special, something Han had brought back for him after one of his many voyages to the Outer Rim, to planets deemed too unsafe for Ben to venture. He’d lost it over the side of a speeder while making it fly, the way Y-Wings were supposed to, and had cried for almost an hour. Dad had promised to bring him back a new one, but it wouldn’t be the same. _

_ “Remember how upset you were, and how you cried, but the crying made you feel better?” Ben nodded again, and he felt Leia kiss the back of his head again. “That’s grief. That feeling when you lose something, and you get really sad, but you cry and you mourn the loss of it until it starts to feel better.” _

_ “Did you lose a jewelry or something?” Ben asked, remembering the time she’d misplaced a pair of earrings, and how she’d made Dad look for them with her for almost an hour before they found them in Han’s bedside table drawer. _

_ He felt Leia shudder a breath against his hair, and she shook her head. _

_ " _ _ A long time ago, before you were born - before I even met your dad - I lost something far greater than jewelry.” Ben waited, but Leia didn’t continue. After a moment, he pulled himself from her arms, feeling her squeeze him before she reluctantly let him go, probably expecting him to go back to bed. Instead, he turned around to face her, sitting on his knees and watching as fresh tears fell down her cheeks. With uncertain confidence, he knew that, for some reason, his mom needed to look at his face right now. _

_ “What did you lose?” he asked softly, and Leia’s face crumbled, her jaw wobbling as she pursed her lips. She reached out, clasping his hands with hers, engulfing his small fingers completely. _

_ “I lost my family,” she admitted, and Ben’s brow knitted together in confusion. _

_ “I thought me and Dad and Uncle Luke and Uncle Chewie were your family?” He didn’t know she had another family. Did she have another son, too? Another boy she could squeeze and tickle and kiss all over his face? Did the other son not try and run away, and that’s why she missed him? _

_ “No, no, Benny,” Leia said with a smile, brushing her hand along his cheek, picking up on his thoughts. “You are my only son. And you are my family. I mean my parents, and my home.” More tears fell, and he had no idea his mom could cry this much. He’d only seen her cry for a few minutes at a time, when her and Dad were fighting, so he knew this must be hurting her more than anything had ever hurt her before. _

_ Ben chewed on his lips, remembering his Y-Wing on Naboo again. After it had fallen off the speeder and into the streets below, his parents had pulled over, helping him look for the toy what felt like all day, until he’d discovered the shattered pieces on the sidewalk. Han had picked them up carefully for him, making sure to collect them all. A week later, he set the toy back on Ben’s dresser, glued together, imperfect but whole. _

_ “Where did you lose them?” he asked expectantly. “Maybe we can go find them.” _

_ Leia’s eyes widened for a moment, then closed, tears slipping faster as she choked on a sob. Her shoulders shook, folding in as she covered her face with her hands and cried. Ben watched her for a moment, his eyes welling with tears again, a few strays cascading down his own cheeks. He set a hand against her knee. _

_ " _ _ Don’t cry, Momma,” he stuttered. “If you remember where you lost them, then we can go look, right? Like my Y-Wing?” _

_ Leia reached out, pulling Ben back into her lap and burying her face in his shoulder as she sobbed. He could feel her tears wetting his sleep shirt, but he wrapped his arms around her neck and held on tight. _

_ " _ _ My sweet boy,” Leia breathed a few minutes later. “You are so good. But they aren’t the type of lost that can be found.” _

_ He knew he shouldn’t ask, but curiosity got the better of him. “What happened?” _

_ Leia pulled back again, brushing her thumbs under his cheeks and wiping away his tears. He could feel her mulling his questions over in her mind, contemplating how to answer it. “Momma, you can just tell me.” _

_ “Remember when Dad and Uncle Lando talked about the Empire? How Dad was a soldier at first, but he didn’t like the message the Empire was trying to send?” Ben didn’t remember the conversation quite that way, Dad and Uncle Lando have more choice words for the experience, but he nodded regardless. “The Empire took my family and my home from me, and I can’t get them back.” More tears fell, Leia swallowing. _

_ “Don’t cry, Momma,” Ben said again, wiping her tears away with clumsy fingers. “It’ll be okay.” _

_ “Sweet boy,” Leia smiled, brown eyes so warm even as her lips quivered. She held his small hands against her face, kissing his fists. “It’s completely okay to cry. I want you to remember that, okay? Crying means that you felt something, felt it so deeply that it took up your whole heart.” _

_ “But your heart is broken, Momma,” Ben retorted, and Leia’s sad smile fell. _

_ “It is,” she agreed. “It’s broken, but every tear I cry is helping mend it.” _

_ “How long until it’s healed?” Leia stared at Ben for a long minute before pulling him back into her lap, setting her chin on his head and grabbing the datapad she’d discarded when he came in the room. She woke it up, typing in a password so the screen filled with pictures of a small girl between a man and a woman Ben didn’t recognize, all three smiling at the camera in front of a beautiful set of waterfalls. _

_ “It’ll never heal,” she confessed, flipping to the next picture of the same small girl with the man, holding her high in the air, both of them with huge grins on their faces. “Not completely. And that’s okay, too. Because it reminds me that I loved something, even though it hurts. It reminds me that it’s okay to grieve for as long as I need to. Grief is a very powerful thing, Ben. And sometimes, it will try to consume you. You have to make sure you don’t let it, and that’s why it’s okay to cry.” _

_ Ben snuggled against her chest, rolling her words over in his mind and thinking about his Y-Wing, how it still had the cracks and how it was missing a few little pieces when his dad had repaired it, but he loved it all the same. _

_ " _ _ Now,” Leia said with a big breath. “Let me introduce you to your grandparents.” _

_ … _

_ Ben jolted from the memory all at once, hands shaking as he inhaled deeply. The pebbles and rocks that had suspended in the air as he meditated dropped all at once, raining around him in muted thunks against the dirt. _

_ I _ _ t was as close to sleep as he’d gotten since he arrived here. Rey’s exhaustion being in this realm had washed over him as soon as he’d pushed her back through the open portal and into her own plane, bringing him to his knees and making his vision darken for nearly a full minute. He’d meditated right then and there, falling into his mind and his memories until that one had overtaken him, so bright and real it was like he’d stepped back in time and relived that moment with his mother. _

_ Breath coming out in pants, Ben pressed his fists into the ground to stop the trembling in his limbs. The memory felt very specific, like the Force was trying to breathe truth into his lungs, write it in his blood in a language he couldn’t read. _

_ “You’ve been gone a while,” his phantom said, standing beside his seated position on the ground. Ben didn’t respond, struggling to control his breathing. His ears were ringing, his heart beating hard against the inside of his chest, as though struggling to beat faster but finding itself incapable. The ringing in his ears grew louder, echoing against the interior of his skull, the vibrations growing louder and louder in his mind as the sound mirrored and reversed. _

_ “Ben?” _

_ The blood in his veins lit up like gunpowder, stinging sensations spreading beneath his skin, and he struggled to his knees. A second heartbeat pressed against his ribs, a beating against his bones more rapidly than his own was capable, and he felt a cry in the Force, a plea for explanation from the door in the back of his mind as the pain doubled him over. _

Rey.

_ His vision doubled, the green grass beneath his body fading to a clay countertop, orange against tan hands that he recognized but did not belong to him. The hands fisted as the pain nearly became blinding, and he felt her look up, look to a shape, felt her tinge of excitement and fear as she looked upon a vague outline that reminded her of… _

Rey, I can’t…

_ B _ _ en. _

It’s not…!

_ The doorway in his mind blew open and  _ screamed _ , a metal blade against the interior wall of a flagship, amplified and circling his head like a cyclone, every turn growing louder and louder. His teeth clenched together as his heart and the second beat hammered an orchestra in his chest, beating against his ribs as though they could beat their way out, the heaviness of his sleeping muscle pumping faster and harder than it has since his death. His vision blurred again as Rey’s darkened, her pain only intensifying his own. _

Rey!

_ His voice was echoed by another in her ears, nearly drowned out by the screeching of metal on metal as it drew the doorway in the back of his mind open larger and larger, the nothing where Rey resides pulling any and all sound into that screaming vortex. _

_ He felt Rey’s desperation, felt her reaching for an answer in the broken hallway that connected them, her Force struggling through the well. Felt the fingers of her searching signature as they sought blindly. Felt as she grasped something, something that was-- _

Rey, no!

_ She yanked. _

_ The door that bridged their minds slammed shut. _

_ Ben felt his heart shatter all at once, pieces stabbing against his lungs with his next breath as the pain and the noise cut off completely. He doubled over, barely catching himself before his face hit the ground, feeling the glass in his chest where his heart continued valiantly to beat. Pretending as though it hadn’t just been torn from his chest. _

_ Nausea threatened to expel the nothing in his stomach that he’d consumed in his months since his death, hauling over his stomach as though his intestines themselves could dispel from his throat. He could taste bile on the back of his tongue, uncertain if it was his imagination or if he could actually throw up in this in-between plane. _

_ When Rey died, he’d felt it in the Force and in his chest. Her signature drifted away like a balloon on a string, and the Force itself had mourned her loss, mourned the way she’d fallen like a hero. He felt like half of himself had died, just as Rey had described - like he was being forced to carry a corpse. _

_ The agony of her death was nothing like this. _

_ This was as though something had split him clean down the middle, had ripped him in half with its bare hands and left the wounds open and festering. He was torn open and bleeding, left to die without the possibility of death’s embrace. _

_ Rey dying had broken his heart, but her Force still existed, still sang a song for his soul to duet. _

_ Now, he couldn’t feel her at all. It was as though she’d never existed, but his spirit ached for a missing piece it couldn’t remember. Sheared in half, the distance between their planes suddenly welcome, because at least if he couldn’t feel her, he felt nothing. Her absence, her infinite nonexistence, was destroying him. _

_ So lost in his own anguish, he didn’t see where the woman came from, only felt her presence all at once, suddenly standing beside his crouched form. He startled, falling back and looking up. _

_ Cast in the same ethereal blue glow of his mother, she wore pure white robes, beautiful blue and white lekku hanging down nearly to her knees. A ceremonial jeweled headpiece dangled on her forehead, draped around her lekku crown with small chains falling around her orange face. Blue eyes narrowed as she stared in the distance, and Ben risked a glance over his shoulder, seeing nothing but the expanse of the same planet he’d grown accustomed to. The woman, however, took a step forward, eyes scanning the horizon as though following something. _

_ I _ _ t took a minute for his hazy mind to click together, but suddenly the smooth, unlined face of the person standing before him was incredibly familiar, and Ben struggled to his feet, feeling his heart weighing him down with every move. _

_ " _ _ Ahsoka Tano,” he gasped, hand pressed against his chest as if he could hold himself together. _

_ The former Padawan didn’t spare him a glance, putting her hand up as if to halt any additional questioning - which, admittedly, there was a lot. Instead, she looked to her right, away from Ben, and nodded once, responding to an unspoken order given by an invisible entity. _

_ “Ben,” she said, finally looking at him, that voice overwhelmingly familiar - his only source of companionship in the months since his death, outside of Rey. The puzzle began forming in his mind, missing pieces falling together and painting a picture far larger than he ever expected. _

_ But her eyes - her voice - were so grave, Ben shook the realization from his mind and gave Ahsoka his full focus, blinking away the dizziness. _

_ She looked back to the horizon, to that unseen Force that evaded his vision, and shook her head. “Something is incredibly wrong.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey whaddup it's everyone's favorite asshole, makeshiftcandy, comin' atcha with another chapter update from Ben's perspective.
> 
> Fun fact, I call my cat, Jaeger, My Sweet Boy, if anyone was wondering where I got that nickname from.
> 
> How many people guessed that Ben's uninvited death guest was Ahsoka?
> 
> One of the things that made me almost as mad as every other aspect of The Rise of Skywalker was finding out that Ahsoka was dead because of Rey's stupid fucking "all the Jedi" speech at the end of the movie that DIDN'T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE and then "all the Jedi" just left her for dead but WhaTEVeR.  
> Rant over.  
> (for now)
> 
> Anyway! Sweet memories between Leia and Ben. Sort of catching up to Rey's current timeline from Ben's perspective. Ahsoka finally becoming a physical presence instead of just a random voice. What's next? Any ideas?
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> I'll see you guys next time! Love you, miss you <3


	13. The Vergence Scatter

“When was the last time you slept?”

Rey was too exhausted to even startle at the unexpected voice standing next to her, her head drooping as she struggled to stay awake, to understand the passages as they blurred together before her weary eyes.

“Yesterday,” she answered automatically, hardly sparing Luke a glance and still managing to catch his raised eyebrow that implied he did not believe her for a moment. “Perhaps the day before.”

“You’ll crash and burn if you keep going this way,” Luke chastised, moving to stand over her shoulder and peer down at the texts laid before her. She’d pulled up the passages in the _Aionomica II_ and the _Rammahgon_ , the two places where the map from the underground cave resided.

Someone – Luke, or perhaps another person – had added an amendment in the _Rammaghon_ , an extension of the map that wasn’t included in the imprint of the cave. Showing another connection point, an extended access point that connected the map to a completely separate region of the known galaxy.

“Ben never slept,” Rey argued, knowing it wasn’t true. He slept far less than she, preferring to rest his mind and body through meditation, but even he needed sleep at times. And she’d not meditated at all, bent over the texts, scouring for clues.

“The Vergence Scatter?” Luke asked, ignoring her protests as he read the inscriptions. “Why are you researching this?”

“There was a map in a cave I found not far from here,” she explained around a yawn, rubbing her eyes. “This map, without the addition. When I touched it, it…”

Luke didn’t say anything for a long moment, then moved until he was facing her, his brow furrowed. “You found the World Between Worlds?”

“No,” Rey answered automatically, stretching her back. Her entire spine popped, from base to neck, and she sighed in relief as the buildup of pressure dissipated. “Not the way the texts and your journal describe it, anyway. There was no infinite room with doorways that led through time.”

“That was the experience described by a friend.” Luke didn’t take his eyes from her. “What did you see?”

The memory was still hazy, buried in layers of fog she’d been trying desperately to clear. But parts of her remembered how it _felt_ , how the plane had pulsed with the Force, with more life and Light and Dark than Rey had ever before experienced.

“It felt like I was _somewhere_ ,” she finally said after collecting her thoughts. “Like I was standing on the surface of a _place_ , not just a plane. And we were in this… forest, of sorts. With more vibrant colors than I could ever describe.” Rey sighed, rubbing her temples. “And it felt like… like we were stagnant, in that meadow, but I had this odd sensation that everything _around us_ was moving. Like nothing else could stay still.”

Luke blinked at her with wide eyes. Without speaking, he reached out, picking up the _Chronicles of Brusbu_ text that she’d not touched since beginning her research. He flipped through the pages, glancing at her as he searched for what, she had no idea.

It took almost a full minute, with his slow flipping, interrupted by his eyes on hers, until he seemed to find what he was looking for. Setting the book very carefully on top of the other texts already laid before her, he pointed at the passage he’d turned to.

“Do you know what this is?” Rey stood, leaning over the text to avoid falling asleep as she studied something new. Whomever had written it didn’t write in Aurebesh, but Threepio had taught her this language when she’d first brought the texts back from Ahch-To.

“‘The Phases of Mortis’?” she asked, the words still not completely familiar to her.

“For generations, Mortis was just a theory,” Luke explained. “A nexus, a planet built not of stone and dirt and foliage, but of the Force itself. The original world, some Jedi called it. Everything that we have ever known, or will ever know, exists on this planet. Deserts, swamps, forests, ice caps – _everything_.” Luke took a slow breath. “As well as things we’ve never before encountered. Forests like our own, but made up entirely of energy. Mountain ranges that never touch the ground. Seas with no beginning and no end.”

“Seems like it would have to be a huge planet to encompass all of that,” Rey said, waiting for the lesson she knew was coming.

“It would,” Luke agreed, “if everything on the planet stayed constant.”

The words sank in slowly, then devoured her completely. “You mean—”

“It’s a planet where things change constantly,” Luke explained. “Impossible to explore it all, because things _move there_.” Rey stared at him, trying to connect the puzzle pieces even with huge gaps missing from the larger picture.

“But you said it was just a theory,” she said softly. Luke nodded.

"It _was_ ,” he emphasized. “Until my father, his Jedi Master, and his Padawan found it.”

Rey sat back slowly, falling into the chair. Because the implications of what Luke was saying meant…

“He’s not dead.” She looked at Luke for confirmation. Her old Master pursed his lips.

“He _died_ , Rey.”

“But he’s not dead,” she repeated. “He’s not on your plane, he’s not one with the Force or in the World Between Worlds.” She pointed at the texts. “He’s on a _planet_ , a real place!”

“He’s not alive,” Luke stressed, and Rey shook her head.

“I’m not saying he is.” The science and schematics were lost on her, but she’s known, felt it in her blood since the beginning – he’s _not_ dead. No matter how far he is, they are still connected. Their bond, quiet in the weeks since the Force beast had reared its unnatural storm of a head, pulsed with life and connection once more. Filling the gaps of her heart with his energy again, gaps she hadn’t remembered were there until she’d used his Force to dispel the monster, even if momentarily.

“Rey--” She put up a hand, interrupting her former Master as she sifted through her thoughts like pages of a book, looking for the piece that connected it all. The dust had settled in the library of her thoughts, weeks since she’d searched so desperately for the solution to bring him back letting the sediment pile up as she left it untouched. Blowing it away took nearly all the air from her lungs.

It was difficult to ascertain why the dust had accumulated in the first place. The why was muddled, as foggy as her memories of Ben - discernible, but clouded, like trying to remember a holoprogram she’d seen as a child on the small holopad Plutt had kept for his personal enjoyment, because the blobfish could afford to have things as hobbies.

Rey grabbed the book again, looking down once more at the ‘Phases of Mortis’ in the text, her eyes wandering over the inscriptions and up, up toward another plot of line segments on the page behind. She flipped the inserted half-page of phases, looking more closely at the faded chart behind it.

“What is this?”

Luke sighed, leaning over and looking at the drawing she was studying. “That’s the Unsolved Theorem of Master Thorpe. It’s a hyperspace map that was once presented to Jedi Padawan as a test of limitations and to teach them to accept that not every theory has a solution.” Rey flipped between it and the half-page map of Mortis.

“These points line up,” she said, drawing the segments lightly across the page of the original theorem, then mirroring the same pattern over the points behind the phases. “Not so unsolved, is it?”

“I imagine that’s why it’s an insert in the book,” Luke acquiesced. “And why they stopped using it during training. These books are ancient, Rey. They may not survive to the next generation.”

“I uploaded their files into Artoo,” Rey admitted casually, looking between the page and the insert once more. Luke sighed deeply.

“Perhaps that wasn’t the best idea,” he said. “Rey, the Jedi--”

“Wait,” she said, holding up a hand and interrupting him once more. A noise of protest huffed from his chest, but Rey was already focused on the _Aionomica II,_ the original map as it was drawn in the texts. In the bottom right corner of the page was the same theorem designed by Master Thorpe, condensed and significantly smaller, with an entire paragraph of information beside it. The language was a jumbled mess of words she recognized and words she didn’t. Impossible to comprehend partially.

“Luke, what is this passage here?” she asked. Her Master didn’t respond, probably still miffed at her constant interruptions, and she sighed. “Listen, I’m sorry I--”

He’d left.

Sighing again, Rey flopped back into the chair, pulling the book back into her lap and reading as though she might decipher the mostly-foreign language. It took a minute for her to give up, setting the book next to its two counterparts on the table and rubbing her temples.

“BB-8?” she called. The droid, having fallen into low power mode in the corner of the room beside D-O, whirred to life, beeping happily as he rolled his way over to Rey. “Could you give Poe a call?”

The droid beeped excitedly, then hummed as he made the outbound call. She could hear his computer system as it connected the correct sequence of codes, and she realized that she had no idea what time it was - perhaps Poe and the others were asleep?

“Rey?” She breathed a sigh of relief as Poe came through the other end of the call, leaning back in the chair. “Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” she answered, patting the top of BB-8’s head as D-O roused from low-power mode behind them, rolling over. “Sorry, I didn’t realize the time.”

“Not a problem,” Poe responded, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “What’s going on? Did you miss me already?” Rey scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Actually, I was wondering if Threepio is with you guys?”

“We were just on Celanon discussing opening the trade routes, so we needed him there to translate,” Poe responded. “Did you… _want_ to talk to Threepio?” He sounded incredulous, and Rey had to stop herself from chuckling.

“Switching to video,” she said, and BB-8 beeped as he complied. Poe fumbled on the other end of the line, and then his face was lighting up Beebee’s small projector, eyes red-rimmed with bruise-like circles beneath. Rey’s brow furrowed. “Have you slept this week?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Poe shot back, throwing her a tired smile as he adjusted something on the ship’s panel in front of him, then flipped a switch. Rey could hear the whine of the autopilot as it took over Poe’s navigation. He stood, disappearing out of sight before she heard him bellow, “Threepio! Rey comm’d for you!”

Rey smiled.

Was this what it was like? When children who had access to communication devices, who had _friends_ , and were at liberty to have friends without having to worry about getting portions stolen, called their companions to chat? It seemed a vaguely familiar concept, something she’d only heard about. Something she’d never had the opportunity to experience for herself.

“Oh, Mistress Rey!” C-3PO declared, the protocol droid’s frozen face suddenly filling the holo. She could see Poe in the background as he sat noisily in the pilot’s chair, huffing and rubbing his eyes. “What a pleasant surprise! I’d thought Admiral Dameron may have been pulling my leg. How might I be of service to you today?”

Rey reached for the _Aionomica II_ , positioning the delicate pages so they were centered in BB-8’s camera lens. “Can you read this passage?”

Threepio was silent as he scanned. “It is a mess of various languages,” he said after a moment, and Rey sighed, figuring that was why she couldn’t read it herself. “However, my translation programming is able to pick apart full sentences from the passage. I don’t believe we translated this excerpt during our time studying the ancient texts together, which is somewhat odd, as I had believed we were done with every element of the books.”

“Yes, but, Threepio, what does it--”

“It states, ‘The waypoints are only accessible during the fullest phase, across the vergence. Unable to chart through hyperspace. Plotting impossible without standing on the surface. The doorway is behind the mirror, the darkest place of the darkest hour. One must shatter to return whole. Follow the loads to Mortis.’”

Poe snorted in the background, leaning his head against the back of the chair. “Sounds like a load of Jedi horseshit to me,” he laughed, and Rey narrowed her eyes.

“I appreciate your help, Threepio,” Rey said.

“Of course, Mistress Rey! I am at your disposal whenever you need me!”

“Thank you,” Rey responded, ending the transmission before saying goodbye to either of them. Her eyes were beginning to hurt, staring at the bright blue light of the projection.

BB-8 beeped sadly, and Rey smiled down at him, patting the small droid’s head. “Sorry you didn’t get to talk to Poe, buddy. Next time, I promise.”

The droid whined, negated but not pushing, and Rey chuckled as he wheeled back over to the corner with D-O telling him positives, both of them shuddering as they slipped back into low power mode.

Rey stood and stretched, looking back down at the texts. They were all connected, between the maps and the hyperspace points and the phases of Mortis, but what connected them was still lost, and her tired mind wouldn’t be able to comprehend the paradox. She needed to rest.

Stripping from her clothes, she stepped into the shower, picking the water option rather than the sonic, letting warmth cascade down her body. A luxury she seldom allowed herself.

The rhythmic pulse of the stream relaxed her tense muscles, bones growing weary beneath her skin as she slowly massaged shampoo into her hair.

Ben felt closer than he ever had. The answer was right there, right in front of her, within the brittle pages of journals created by Masters long dead, and yet it was indiscernible all the same. The weight of impossibility settled on her chest, and she breathed through it, waiting for the sobbing, the ache, the _grief_.

It didn’t come.

The lack of emotion didn’t settle the same way the grief had. It felt like a black hole she was wading through, wearing like a shawl, light and impossible to feel but as present as her cloak of melancholy had been. She finished her shower with slow, calculated movements, stepping out and toweling herself dry. The mirror was fogged with evidence of her bathing, and Rey cleared some of the steam to look at herself.

Hazel eyes. Sun-kissed skin, freckles more prominent since she’d returned to a desert lifestyle. Brown hair that was dripping onto her skin, longer than she’d ever worn it, the ends brushing the top of her breasts.

Completely the same.

Impossibly different.

 _No one tells you that love changes you_ , she remembers hearing once. An acorn of wisdom that an older woman back on Jakku was expecting her to harvest, to plant so it might turn into a towering tree one day.

She’d never given it any thought, tossing it in the dirt of her mind. Who was she, a desert rat, a scavenger, to ever hope for love? She had more pressing issues to worry about.

Yet it took root all the same, burying itself out of sight and waiting for the right moment to sprout.

She’d never felt closer to finding Ben, but she still had never felt further away from him. And it should hurt, how little it bothered her. It should make her ache to know that he was out there, waiting for her, and yet she was here, pouring over texts, searching for him with hope and love but not grief.

If she couldn’t find him, she was truly afraid that this new disposition would not allow her to care.

She pulled on sleep shorts, staring at the hemmed shirt she’d found in a pile of discarded things, before turning back into her quarters. The chest where she kept her mementos was beneath the bed, and she pulled it out, digging past a few precious things and to the bottom where Ben’s clothes lay.

She’d repaired them. Washed them. Unsure if Ben would need clothes, when he undoubtedly returned – he’d been dressed when she interacted with him on the strange planet, on _Mortis_ , wearing innocuous black robes. But the long-sleeved shirt and military-issue black pants were an option, were he to choose them.

She pulled the shirt out, holding it close to her chest a moment, the way she had on Exegol after he’d faded away. Then, breathing in the scent of fabric – it had lost his smell after she’d washed it, and she had cried for nearly an hour – she pulled the shirt over her head, slipping her damp hair through the stretched neckline. It fell off one shoulder, the sleeves entirely too long to be practical, and hung more than halfway down her thighs, covering the unnecessary shorts she wore beneath.

Her chest constricted uncomfortably as she sat on the floor, wearing Ben’s shirt, her vision blurring. Shakily, she brought her hands up to her cheeks, brushing away the tears as the slipped down her skin.

_Why am I crying?_

She used the sleeves to dry her cheeks, but it was useless – more tears slipped out, and Rey gave up, allowing them to fall, to drip and dampen the black fabric hanging around her shoulders and chest.

_Why doesn’t this hurt?_

It was like her heart and mind were no longer connected, feeding emotion to one another. The thread between them had been severed, cut carelessly by the claws of a beast who didn’t care if she was left in shreds or without the driving emotion that had been fueling her search for Ben all these months.

_Why can’t I feel anything?_

She wrapped her arms around her knees, waiting for the tears to ebb.

…

It was an odd sensation, waking up and knowing you were still asleep.

Odd, but forgotten as she inhaled her surroundings, the familiarity of the forest nearly toppling her. Registering where she was took half a second, and then her feet were rushing through the underbrush, dipping through the forest faster than she ever had, not caring to explore. The blacks and whites whipped past her vision, blending into the muted gray of a settling mist.

She nearly fell as she pressed through the final wall of trees, but _he_ was there, grabbing her, pulling her into his arms. Wrapping his warmth and calm around her, standing at the edge of the brush as though he’d been expecting her.

Waiting, always waiting.

“Ben,” she gasped, panting against his shoulder, and he pulled her more tightly to him, his breath a shudder against her chest. She inhaled his scent and it felt like home.

“Rey.” He said her name with a cadence of disbelief, as though he’d never expected her return. As though he’d stood at the edge of this meadow and watched for her, eyes scanning the trees for the familiar silhouette he wasn’t sure would ever come back.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” she said, hands fisting against his robes.

“Don’t be,” Ben responded, pulling back even as she clung to him. After a reluctant moment, she let him go, but he only pulled away enough to look at her, to brush her hair back from her eyes. His fingertips trailed across her cheekbones, and he huffed out a laugh, the warmth in his eyes nearly bringing her to tears. He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, and they spilled down her cheeks.

Happiness. Pure, impossible happiness. It filled her chest, her lungs as she took a breath in.

“I cut you off,” she said slowly. “I don’t know how – I’m not sure what happened. It was like the driving force that connected me to you was gone all at once.” He was shaking his head, but she needed to explain. “Ben, I’m sorry – I stopped looking, just for a little while. I stopped, and I’m still not sure why.”

“Cyar’ika,” he breathed against her skin. “I’ve been worried about you.”

“I don’t understand what happened,” she emphasized, feeling Ben nod against the crown of her head. “It was like everything that tethered me to you was cut somehow.”

“I know,” Ben said carefully. “I felt it, too.”

Rey blinked once, twice, then pulled away from his embrace to look up at him. He had nothing but that same warmth, that same _love_ , the smallest of smiles playing on his lips, eyes still alight with the barest amount of disbelief. Because damn all the weeks they’ve spent apart – she was _here_ now, had found a way to reconnect, and she could feel his complete devotion, his awe of her perseverance.

“Do you know what happened?” she asked. He took a stilted breath, pursing his lips. As soon as he opened them, she held up a hand, pressing it to his mouth. “Don’t you dare tell me it’s not important.”

He chuckled, a sound that started in the tips of her fingers and pierced straight to her heart. Kissing her fingers one by one, he pulled her hand away, lacing their fingers together and pressing his forehead against hers.

He said nothing, but she felt him pouring himself into her, felt him pulling her into himself in turn, until their energies were tangled together, that same beautiful mosaic of Force that pulsed through her veins every day, heightened only by his presence, his skin, his warmth.

Then, like the unfolding of a flower in the sun, she felt a memory blooming in her mind.

_Ben, do you know what grief is?_

Rey stood aside as a small Ben, a tiny Ben, clambered onto a young Leia’s lap, as he brushed her tears away with unpracticed fingers.

_Don’t cry, Momma._

Leia filled that bedroom with her love for her son, wrapping Rey in an embrace nearly as warm as Ben’s around her waist.

_It’s okay to cry._

Rey felt tears slip down her own cheeks, and she wanted so much to reach for that small Ben and that young Leia, to wrap them in her own strength and protect them with every part of herself. This pure moment between mother and son. She wanted to keep them safe, keep them whole, shield them from the future tears they would both shed.

_It means you felt something so deeply it took up your whole heart._

Young Ben, wrapped in his mother’s arms. Rey felt a sob choke its way out of her throat.

_Grief is a very powerful thing, Ben. And sometimes, it will try to consume you._

The memory faded like a dimming light, and she looked up at Ben, who had nothing but peace written across his features as he slowly opened his eyes to catch her gaze.

“Why did you show me that?” she asked softly, and Ben smiled.

“You know why,” he responded, squeezing her fingers, tracing her cheek with his other hand.

She felt her jaw wobble, felt a new round of tears fall every time she blinked, felt her chest as it ached with the beating melody of a sadness she couldn’t feel.

Chancing a glance, the shadows began stretching in her peripheral. Her next breath felt forced, and she stood on her toes, brushing a kiss against his lips.

“I have to go,” she admitted, and Ben nodded. The light began sparking, growing brighter around them, and Rey squeezed his hand tighter. “I’ll be back for you.”

“I know,” Ben responded, kissing her again.

“And I won’t go away again, I promise,” she stressed, searching his eyes even as his features blurred in the light.

His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I know.”

Then, realization of recently-discovered information dawned as she felt him fading away, and she reached for him.

“Ben! I know where you are!” He smiled again, barely visible in the bright light, but she refused to close her eyes even as they burned.

“Yes, I know. I felt when you figured it out.”

“I’m coming for you!” she stressed as her hands grasped at nothing, begging the Force for another minute, half a minute, just to explain. “Ben, I love you!”

She felt more than heard his chuckle. Felt as it filled her chest with a longing she’d nearly forgotten, knocking the air from her lungs. The flowers that had bloomed there when she’d gone to the cave a few days before opened all at once, reaching for the sun of his smile. Watered by her tears as they continued to fall, hardly having stopped since they began back in her bedroom.

_I know, cyar’ika._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo waddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy.
> 
> This chapter is a lil late (a whole day sorry sorry) but it actually sort of kicked my ass? Like, I kept going back and forth on it because I felt like it was too informative, but also it's all important information so delegating what to remove was impossible. It all ended up staying.
> 
> All information regarding the ancient texts that I am using can be found in the Visual Dictionary for TROS. That's right, I'm using my own interpretation of legitimate Star Wars canon to figure this out. Obviously I'm taking creative license.
> 
> It's probably definitely very wrong but whatever.
> 
> Did anyone guess that Ben is on Mortis? Does anyone have any guesses as to how he got there??
> 
> I reunited the children because I think they needed it.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Things are happening, the rest of the story is planned out in my head with bullet points written on sticky notes and stuck into my copy of aforementioned Visual Dictionary.
> 
> I love you guys! I'll see you soon!


	14. Dawning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Close My Eyes by UNIONS pairs well with this chapter.

_ On a conscious level, he understands what happened. _

_ The pain became too much. The grief had overtaken her, so she’d found some way to stamp it out altogether. Despite their connection, despite his existence on a plane that seldom felt far from her own, the days and weeks she’d spent convinced of her own isolation had weighed too heavily. Even her renewed memory of their blissful nights spent together hadn’t erased the months of built-up loneliness that had putrefied in her heart. _

_ Rey had closed the bond completely. _

_ Ahsoka had flitted back and forth between planes, a spectral presence to evaluate Rey’s life from the shadows. Ben had been prepared to demand, to beg, to plead, to scream; none of it was necessary. As soon as the pain and the screeching in his head had stopped, Ahsoka had faded from this realm, then returned some hours later, shoulders drawn and eyes endlessly sad. _

_ “Ben, listen...” _

_ He couldn’t. _

_ He didn’t want to. _

_ Aware of the way his heart still pulsed dimly in his chest, beating only for Rey,  _ because  _ of Rey, he’d walked away from the stagnant meadow, aware that Rey’s return based solely on her access to their bond - something she’d discarded, tossed aside so carelessly, that precious package he’d presented to her as gently as he could, when they were on opposite sides of a war. _

_ It should hurt. Knocking unnecessary wind from his lungs, an elbow to the gut, a lightsaber to the abdomen, a blaster bolt to the heart. _

_ It should hurt. _

_ But it didn’t. _

_ He went searching for the temple again, aware that it had answers to questions he knew he was asking but couldn’t hear over the roaring of his own blood in his ears. Leaving the stagnant wood and entering the constant of the planet once more, searching for the peaked edges of a structure that did not fit in with its surroundings. _

_ Ahsoka accompanied him, though she seldom spoke, walking at a leisurely pace no matter how quickly he moved. He hiked through the hills, waded through swamps, climbed mountains in search of the not-quite-familiar roof, certain he’d seen it before, Ahsoka’s reassurances that it was here lost to his ears. _

_ It never peaked above the tree line again, teasing him with its existence, just out of reach. As though, now that the bond was closed, the temple had no desire to reveal its secrets. Like his tether to Rey was the only thing that he could offer in exchange for information. _

_ Without her, he may as well be completely dead. A ghost, as Ahoska was, as he knew his mother and uncle were. But, even with the bond closed, even with Rey’s absence, he could not seem to find a permanent death. _

_ They’d been hiking back toward the general direction of the meadow, unsure and uncaring if he’d even be able to find it again after spending so much time away, when Ben stopped beneath a tree. Ahsoka was just behind him, he could feel her presence, a balm to what he knew would be a crushing loneliness with Rey’s absence otherwise. Eyes on the pure white sky above, he almost expected it to rain, despite knowing it to be an impossibility. _

_ “Why won’t she let me go?” _

_ He’d asked no one, nothing, not really. _

_ He asked his mother, his uncle, his grandfather, likely watching him with the same bereft, fleeting attention they watched Rey from the afterlife. _

_ He asked his father, a lost memory that still stung, all these months later; not a ghost, but a feeling, an energy in the Force as it absorbed every piece of him he hadn’t left with Ben. _

_ He asked Ahsoka. _

_ She hesitated before she answered. _

_ “I don’t know that it’s conscious,” she answered carefully, “but her Force is half yours, Ben. Her own power and yours mix in her veins, but it’s like… Like oil and water. Separate, but together when shaken.” _

_ Ben understands what Ahsoka doesn’t say. _

_ To release him, to rid herself of the oil that is his Force, she would need to painstakingly separate his energy and dispel it completely, bleed it out from the inside. _

_ It’s highly likely she doesn’t even realize what it is she’s holding on to. _

_ And to do so would also expel half of the energy she’s worked so hard to cultivate since their disastrous final meeting on Exegol. What if it caused her pain? Could Ben, even in a true death, bear the responsibility that she must shed half of the energy she rightfully believes belongs to her in order to release him from purgatory? Could he take the brunt of that pain? _

_ This unnatural half-life is a better alternative than hurting her. _

_ Isn’t it? _

_ He can’t tell, in this odd, numbed state of consciousness he’s now subjected to. There is a telling statement in the nothing that envelopes him, body and soul, but the irony is lost in this moment. The heart that beats for Rey in his chest does not remember why it pulses still, only that it does. Muscle memory, rather than consciousness. _

_ He knows he loves her, has always loved her, even before he knew her. Theirs was a connection written in a destiny spun when they were both stardust. But a blank canvas stares back at him when he tries to dig for emotion, an empty desert where a garden bloomed not long ago. _

_ When she’d come to him, Rey had screamed that she couldn’t feel anything anymore as tears streamed down her face, but Ben had understood even then - she felt  _ too much _ , just as he did, and the overwhelming emotion had washed over her like a tide that dragged her under, that pierced her skin and mind and heart with everything, all at once, so she couldn’t feel any one thing. Every emotion was a pinprick, a needle in a sleeping limb, causing a numbness he was all too familiar with after his years under Snoke. _

_ This is nothing like that. This is a true numb, an all-encompassing nothing that swaddled him in a shroud of nought and followed him like a cloud. It was as though he was standing at the maw of a festering wound, breathing in infection and disease with every breath, but the pain had yet to come to fruition. A bruise, maybe - tender to the touch, but no longer painful. _

_ Is Rey in pain? _

_ “She is at peace,” Ahsoka answers the question Ben does not ask aloud. “The disconnect has allowed her to...  _ separate _ from her grief completely.” _

_ Ben pauses. The cadence in Ahsoka’s tone is telling, and he whips around to look at her. Blue eyes are far too cavalier, as though she realizes she may have slipped up in her verbiage, her tone. _

_ “What do you mean?” _

_ “Just as you’re numb, so is she.” _

_ “No, you…” He trails off, searching for the words, then sighs dejectedly. Did it matter? What could he do, trapped here in this realm, days bleeding into weeks without even an inkling of thought or feeling from the other half of his soul. His dyad, ripping herself in half to disregard him completely. Contented to a lack of life if only to avoid the agony of being separated. How could he possibly blame her for that? _

_ He couldn’t. _

_ He didn’t. _

_ “You think she’s abandoned you here.” It wasn’t a question, and Ben didn’t respond, ducking beneath the foliage as the treeline gave way to an energy forest. “You know as well as I that she has not. That girl’s determination outshines either of the Tatooine suns. She’s just gotten off track momentarily.” _

_ A pitstop in an otherwise fruitless endeavor to return him to a life he wasn’t sure he could have. Absolutely one he did not deserve. Even upon Rey’s insistence that he was good, worthy, how could he repent the sins of his previous life? _

_ He’d need to live a thousand generations to even begin. _

_ No, he needed her return. He needed to convince her that he was gone, gone for good, and she must let him go. Must let him pass into another realm, as he was meant to so many months ago, when he’d transfused his Force into her and ripped her from the hands of the afterlife. _

_ It was as he neared the meadow, returning to the place where he’d lost her, lost her for good, that he felt a humming in the back of his mind. Soft and tender, it grew as he neared their place, their meadow, until he was running, sprinting, desperate to see her again, desperate to shed the nothing and  _ find her _. _

_ She was not there. _

_ But the siren’s song grew louder, a singing, a melody more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. And he felt light in his mind, from the space where Rey once lived, felt as it grew and stretched, reaching, reaching, until he responded in kind. _

_ Until he took her hand. _

_ It was as though he flooded her, senses filling until he was looking through her eyes, feeling her fingertips as they curled around the hilt of her saber, lungs expanding and contracting with every labored breath she took. The suns, normally so bright, were obstructed by black clouds, filling the sky and rolling like waves on a restless sea. _

_ A gelatinous beast made of suspended oil stalked the field before them, rising on hind legs and screeching straight into their mind, that same metal-on-metal he remembers from when Rey left him. _

_ Another breath in, and she filled her limbs with him, allowing his Force to peel away like fruit skin, to envelope and consume her body. It was instinct to widen his legs, to drop one hand from the saber - too light for proper two-handed combat - to pull back from her defaulted stance and fall into his own. _

_ They charged the beast, two acting as one, Ben remembering the separation between them on Exegol and how it did not exist here, how they moved seamlessly with his power, diving, striking, parrying his movements, his actions, Rey’s own falling away completely. _

_ The beast shrieked as it disintegrated in a puff of smoke, and the gravity of Rey’s power struck him all at once. Not only had she single-handedly stitched the bridge of their minds back together, she’d figured out how to separate his Force from her own, how to use his energy to her advantage, knowing that the beast would predict her movements but not his. _

Incredible, Rey.

_ She lit up like the sun before he was pulled away. _

_ Falling to his knees, back to himself, Ben looked up at the white sky, expecting to see the black clouds of a monster Rey was facing alone on Tatooine, a Force beast that reared on hind legs and screamed into the aether of their minds like the windstorm of energy that had catapulted Ben into this existence of nothing those weeks ago. _

_ The familiar emotion tore through his chest like claws, like serrated knives, leaving gaping wounds in their wake as he staggered, barely catching himself when his body pitched forward of its own accord. His lungs ached as they protested, and with his hands fisted in the grass below, he realized he was screaming.  _

_ Ahsoka’s words suddenly made sense. _

_ Rey’s own sorrow, so much larger than she could comprehend, pistoning itself a new life as it blanketed itself in her Force. Screaming into existence like a child desperate to breathe. Tearing through her heart, attacking where she was weak, wounded; where she needed to heal, and ripping her open like gift wrap. Taking that which drove her to clarity and using it to try and drive her insane. She breathed life into an infection without even realizing, too caught up in the desperation of finding him, seeing him, bringing him from this realm back to hers. Until cancer stood on six legs and came back time and again to threaten her life. _

Grief is a very powerful thing, Ben.

_ I did this to her. _

_ He remembered, all at once, when they’d been torn apart with the finality that led to the numbness - when she’d reached for him, his blackened form like scorched paper before her blurry eyes; how he knew what she didn’t. _

_ Rey, I can’t… _

_ But the thought was never finished, it hurt too much, his body and mind warring with shrapnel and explosions and gunpowder. How she’d been fighting so hard, fighting for so much, just to see him, to touch him. How he’d never gotten to explain before they’d been ripped apart. _

_ Rey, I can’t be there. _

_ Rey, it isn’t me. _

_ Rey, it is impossible for me to exist on that plane. I am tethered, stuck to this world, my Force half of you, my energy anchored without choice. _

_ Rey… _

_ It’s been you all along. _

_ For the first time in the weeks since she’d left, Ben felt something outside of the numb, the nothing, the void that had captured him, body and soul. _

_ He felt agony. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshifcandy.
> 
> This chapter is a little bit shorter than the others, and I'm sorry. I also know it's coming a little late, just like last week's.
> 
> To be totally candid, I work in healthcare. I'm sure you all can imagine the straight fuckery that has been the past three weeks with all this COVID-19 stuff. I'm hella exhausted, my sleep is plagued by nightmares of going into the office and doing my daily activities. I straight do so much of my writing while I'm at work, and I can't these days because every moment of my time is occupied by new material, new information from the CDC and the DHS, we're being pulled in and out of meetings constantly. My office opted in as a testing site, so preparing for that, ordering the necessary supplies, doing proper set up, the emails.
> 
> Guys.
> 
> The emails.
> 
> Every day. So many.
> 
> I know this pandemic stuff has been kind of scary, so please, if you have any questions or concerns regarding coronavirus, don't hesitate to reach out to me on my [Tumblr](http://makeshiftcandy.tumblr.com) \- I probably don't know that much more information than you do, but I've been working with my patients to give them the facts and explain what I know in a healthy, positive way, and it's been decently well-received.
> 
> Except by the people who have been demanding free hand-sanitizer.
> 
> Also feel free to talk to me on Tumblr just 'cause you want to. I promise I don't bite.
> 
> Anyway. Let me know what you think of this chapter! Ben, in his scholarly-typical way, figured out what's actually been plaguing Rey. Does Rey herself know? No, no she does not. Because Ben didn't fuckin tell her when he finally got to see her.
> 
> But that's neither here nor there.
> 
> I'm going to try my best to have the next chapter written and up by Saturday, but I honestly appreciate you guys and your patience so much while I figure all this stressful shit out.
> 
> I'm so tired.
> 
> Send help.


	15. Jigsaw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're into that sort of thing, Days Gone Quiet by Lewis Capaldi goes well with this chapter (and tbh like the entire story I love this song).

“Fuck!”

Papers flew as Rey swiped her arms through the mess she’d hoarded on her dining table, a datapad clattering loudly on the stone ground of her kitchen, two of the texts landing with muted thumps, victims of her frustration.

Even as she worked her way through the puzzle, none of it made sense. There were huge pictures, various charted parts of a single map that had no connection; at least, none that she could locate. Like seeing the piece of the map to Luke Skywalker through BB-8’s projection without having the rest, back another lifetime ago, when she was still naive enough to believe Ben was her enemy.

Mortis. Hyperspace plots. Mirrors. The vergence scatter, the map written in rock beneath the ground.

_ The waypoints are only accessible during the fullest phase. _

Clearly this was in reference to the phases of Mortis. Even Rey, sleep-deprived and stressed, could recognize the solution to the first part of the riddle. But what were the waypoints? The connecting points to get to Mortis? It was uncharted - even Master Thorpe’s theory could not deign any singular part of the galaxy as the planet’s resting place. As though it moved and appeared wherever it chose, unbound by the laws of gravity or the pull of the stars.

And the rest, the  _ across the vergence _ at the end of the sentence. Luke had said the Vergence Scatter was the theory that would lead to the World Between Worlds, the two maps in the texts and the one on the cave wall somehow giving her the stepping stones to walk through the vergence. 

With a huff, she sat bodily in the chair, the aged wood groaning beneath her frame. She grabbed the datapad off the floor, looking at Threepio’s translated words again, as if rereading the same sentences over and over would reveal a truth she hadn’t currently found. Like the secrets were hidden between the letters, a code she couldn’t decipher.

_ Unable to chart through hyperspace _ .

Of course, because the planet was not in a singular location, or so she assumed. There were pages filled in by Master Thorpe of math that tried desperately to plot the location of Mortis, but it was impossible even on paper. The pens used to chart and notate changed, leading Rey to believe that Master Thorpe spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a planet that she wasn’t sure existed in the first place.

_ Plotting impossible without standing on the surface. _

Plotting  _ what _ ? Standing on the surface of  _ where _ ? She wanted to scream at whomever it was that wrote the inarticulate riddle, whether it be Master Thorpe or someone else, words that probably made complete sense to them but was a juxtaposition of unrelated statements to everyone else.

With a sigh, she grabbed one of the texts off the floor - the  _ Aionomica II - _ as well as her scratch paper - something she’d recently discovered she preferred writing on. The ink pens she’d bartered for in a dusty Mos Eisley antique shop had remained unharmed during her tantrum, so she picked one up, tucking it behind her ear as she mulled over the texts once more.

There  _ had  _ to be something else. A missing piece, information she was managing to skip over every painstaking reread. A connection that was eluding her despite her continuous and tedious studying.

She wished, not for the first time this evening, that Ben was here beside her. A scholar by nature, this impossible puzzle to her would probably be a simple picture to him, a straight line connecting all the dots that she was managing to snake around.

However, were Ben here, she wouldn’t have taken on this homework project to begin with.

No, they wouldn’t concern themselves with any of this, at least not at first. The Force, the school, training - none of it would matter, not for a little while, if at all. Rather, they’d revel in the connection, the reality of their oneness, breathing each other in, wrapped in one another’s presence in a way they hadn’t been allowed to be for so long. They’d take the  _ Falcon _ , she decided - Lando wouldn’t mind, it was Ben’s by birthright. Take it and fly away, hole up somewhere far away and  _ green _ , let the rest of the galaxy melt away.

Spend at least the first week of their vacation in a shared bed.

Biting her lip, she wondered if Ben could hear her thoughts as they took on a lustful hue. She leaned back in her chair, remembering the expanse of his chest as it glistened with sweat in the low lighting of his quarters when the Force still threw them together at inopportune times. How she’d asked him to put on a cowl, because it was near impossible not to look, because she had so little experience with the male body, especially one sculpted the way Ben’s was, chiseled over years of harsh training.

It was ridiculously easy to imagine the feel of that chest pressed against hers. The way his hard planes would line up perfectly with her soft curves, how his skin would slide along hers like a hallikset. How his hips would rest in the cradle of hers, that powerful body between her thighs, two halves coming together in a perfect whole.

Rey closed her eyes, taking a deep breath through her nose to dispel the plaguing thoughts and focus on the task at hand. If she managed this - if she pulled Ben back to her side - she wouldn’t have to imagine anything anymore. They could practice together, find out just how exceptionally they fit together. Find out just how deeply their connection goes.

They were forged in the stars together. When they finally melted, not as two, but as  _ one _ , she wondered exactly how monumental it would feel.

With a sigh, she sat upright, looking down once more at the spread of information before her. If she accomplished her goal, her imagination would be her reality. This is what she needed to focus on - her reality. What was real, not what she hoped.

Reality: Ben was not dead, but not alive either, his existence a tentative line somewhere between the two. She knew, somehow, that only she could bring him back, though she had no idea how to accomplish this.

Reality: He was trapped on a planet that did not stay in any one place, making it impossible to find in her X-Wing. It was unmapped, there were no recorded visits, and the only thing that proved to her that she wasn’t totally insane was Luke’s assurance that his father had been there once.

Reality: She had all of the pieces of the puzzle before her, but she cannot figure out the way they fit together, and part of her just wants to scream endlessly, air rushing from her lungs in hopes that a solution is found in a brain impaired of oxygen.

Reality: The riddle left behind by a Jedi long dead is only mounting her questions, rather than providing solutions, and that thought makes her want to scream even more.

Munching on a piece of starch loaf with Jogan fruit jam spread over the top, she thinks about calling Maz, knowing the old woman may have answers, or at least can give some amount of cryptic knowledge that Rey may have better luck deciphering than the conundrum of a puzzle before her.

But the thought of inviting someone else so intimately into her secrets feels wrong, slimy in a way, like oil splashed across her skin. As though the small fortress she’s built within herself for her and Ben is solidified in its existence by circling only between the two of them. A house that connects them with walls too high for anyone else to climb.

“Rey?” Rey looked down at where D-O had rolled up to her chair, nudging her foot with his wheel before training his camera on her face. “How is your work?”

“Tiring,” she admitted, rolling her eyes. “My informal schooling on Jakku is not proving insightful in deciphering the ancient wisdom of the Jedi.”

“I cannot imagine that they taught classes regarding ancient Jedi philosophy.”

“Remember that conversation we had about sarcasm?”

" My apologies.”

“It’s not your fault,” she sighed, patting the droid’s head. He leaned into her touch, having come such a long way with physical affection since they’d found him those months ago. With a smile, she stood up, stretching her sore back. “I think it’s your circuitry - too old, maybe, to learn voice inflection. It’s not a bad thing, just part of who you are.” BB-8 beeped in agreement, and D-O’s head whipped between the two of them as though offended.

Pouring herself a glass of water and grabbing another snack, she watched amusedly as BB-8 and D-O squabbled a bit, D-O shooing the other droid away as his eyes scanned the text she hadn’t bothered to grab off the floor.

“May I ask why you need the hyperspatial points to Exegol when you already have the wayfinder?” D-O asked as Rey chewed her fruit. She paused mid-bite, looking down at the droid where he was studying the  _ Rammahgon _ .

“What now?”

“This section of the map,” the small droid said, nodding toward the excerpt of the book, “bears similarities to the hyperspatial waypoints you mapped in X-Wing on the way to Exegol. Are they not the same?”

Rey stood another second, then dropped to her knees beside the droid, blinking away the unexplainable moisture in her eyes and seeing the map with new awareness. It was small, barely legible with age, but the droid was right - the small plot points, pinpricks of ink in the pages, were similar to the hyperlanes she took to lead the fleet to Exegol.

Drawing her fingertip along the lines, she paused a moment as she connected the original map to the amendment, brow furrowing.

“BB-8?” she called, and the droid beeped his affirment. “Do you still have the section of map that led us to Luke?” He beeped again, then whirred as he powered on his projector, illuminating the room in blue light as the map section sprouted from his facial lens.

Rey grabbed the book off the floor, holding up the amendment and comparing it to the map section BB-8 held. In her mind, she pictured the rest of the map, the galactic pieces Artoo had salvaged over however many years Luke had been painstakingly finding his way to Ahch-To.

“Conduits,” she breathed, eyes darting from BB-8’s chart to the crude drawing in the book. She backed up a step, then two, holding the book out. BB-8 beeped a question. “The map isn’t a map of the World Between Worlds at all, it’s a map of Force-sensitive planets. They must be… They must be gateways.” She eyed the line segments. “And they’re all connected.”

She drew a line up, off the page, tracing the same pattern from Ahch-To up, up, to…

_ No. _

But if she was correct, then…

“I need to go to sleep,” she said suddenly, slamming the book closed and setting it on the table. BB-8 and D-O looked at each other, confusion evident on their emotionless faces. But Rey was paying no attention, practically throwing her dirty dishes into the sink, a whirlwind of motion as she rushed to get everything ready for a sleep cycle.

_ Ben, _ she thought, reaching for the crevice between them, the empty space where she knew soon he’d fill not only temporarily, but  _ permanently _ , as it should have always been.

Even though there was that disconnect between her life and his death, she could almost _ feel  _ the warmth of his patience as he waited for her to piece the puzzle together. Sitting there, just out of reach, completely relaxed as he put his faith in her to pull him back, even if he was certain she’d only be able to dispel him forever. She’d surprise him, she’s done it in the past. From healing him of his lightsaber wound all the way back to scarring him on Starkiller, all she remembered was the awe in his eyes, the commending of her power as it grew, as  _ they  _ grew.

How could the universe expect her to grow alone after everything they had been through? That was like asking a forest to bloom overnight - impossible, ridiculous to even propose.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she pulled on her nightclothes - sleep shorts and his sweater - and she knew falling asleep would not come easily. But she scrunched her eyes shut, willing her mind to slow down, trying to breathe through the excitement. Her heart beat music against her ribs, and sleep seemed further away than it ever had.

…

Not terribly far, after all.

Her mouth stretched in a grin as she opened her eyes to the serene black and white landscape, trees swaying in a soft breeze as the parallel shadows danced in time. Rey couldn’t help but run, that pent-up adrenaline from her night following her into her dreams. She ducked through the underbrush, stretching unused muscles from her days spent pouring over ancient paradoxes.

She burst forth from the meadow, eyes scanning for a familiar disarray of black hair, confused he wasn’t waiting for her as he always did. The smile faltered on her lips as she whipped around, stepping further into the grass.

“Ben?” she called, crossing the meadow and waiting for him to scoop her up the way he always has. She stood a moment, then closed the distance to the edge of the meadow, peering past the trees where he’d usually apparate.

“Ben?” she called again, turning around, heart beginning to beat faster for reasons unrelated to her short sprint. “Ben!”

She moved closer to the edge of the trees, the side of the forest she’d never before tread.

“I wouldn’t step further, young one,” a voice called out as soon as Rey came upon the treeline. She whipped around, eyes falling on a figure standing in the middle of the field where Rey had been just seconds before. She was  _ beautiful _ , with large, knowing blue eyes that matched the blue and white lekku hanging around her face. She had intricate white facial decorations that contrasted starkly with her pale orange skin, and Rey had to blink to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating.

“Who--?”

“You may get lost, and you’ll never accomplish your goal,” the woman continued, a light smile playing on her lips. “You have an extra sense. Perhaps you should try using it?” Her voice was vaguely familiar, but Rey let it go for the moment, taking a slow, deep breath and stepping away from the treeline.

Closing her eyes, she stretched her senses around the meadow, searching for the familiarity she now felt couldn’t be far.

She felt his recognition the moment their minds connected. The way his spirit lifted, the way he rushed from whatever corner of the planet he’d been hiding to meet her, surprise evident in the quickness of his steps. Ducking and weaving through a trail of branches and shrubbery he’d memorized, just the same as she on the opposite side of the meadow.

She heard him, and her grin returned, stretching across her cheeks as he broke through the trees some dozen yards away, his own grin matching hers in both excitement and awe.

“You’re here,” he breathed, closing the distance between them and cupping her face in his hands, wiping away tears she hadn’t even realized she’d been shedding. “It’s so late, I didn’t think you were coming.”

“Sorry,” Rey laughed, her cheeks beginning to hurt as they circled excitement back and forth between them.  _ This _ is how it was always meant to be; a timeless connection, a never ending volley of happiness just by existing in the same place. How could there be so much pain and confusion and unfeeling when here,  _ now _ , the warmth in his eyes brought her to life? “I was reading the texts.”

Ben only nodded, eyes searching hers, as if committing her face to memory before he pressed their foreheads together. As desperate for the physical connection as she. She revelled in him, allowing herself the pleasure of his existence. Millions of stars could erupt and rip the galaxy in half, and Rey would be none the wiser.

Still, there were pressing matters to discuss.

“Ben, what are the phases of Mortis?” She felt his sigh as it fanned over her face, and she couldn’t help but chuckle as his aura took on the barest slice of annoyance. As though they could avoid business and just  _ be. _ A concept, really.

“Mortis operates in phases, the same as any moon in a star system,” he finally responded, his voice a murmur in the quiet breeze. “The equivalent of the waxing, waning, new and full phases cycle every sixty to seventy years, from what I understand based on research I did with Luke as a kid.”

“Luke was looking for Mortis?”

“Unsuccessfully,” Ben responded, his hands trailing down her cheeks to the sides of her neck. “When we were looking into it, the phases weren’t projected to begin a full cycle for another fifteen years, which is the only time the planet was accessible to the outside world.” His thumb was tracing small circles against her pulse point, and Rey leaned into his touch, hands coming up to circle around his wrists. They needed to focus.

“How long ago was that?”

“Cyar’ika…” She’d closed her eyes some time ago, and it would be a sin to open them now, she was certain. Even if she knew he was distracting her, it was impossible not to allow herself the concession of his attention.

“Ben, how long?”

“Maybe fifteen years ago,” he finally admitted, and his voice was even closer than it had been as he leaned toward her.

The implications of his admission set in a moment later, and her eyes snapped open, widening as they looked up at him. “Wait, what? So the planet is falling into the full phase?”

“Rey--”

" Answer the question.”

Ben sighed deeply, pulling back the barest amount to look down at her. His thumb had halted its ministrations on her neck, leaving her partially grateful and partially at a loss.

“In about two days, the planet will be at its fullest, for maybe seventy-two hours. But, listen to me,” he pulled her back as she attempted to step away, not to leave, merely to think a little more clearly. “Rey, it doesn’t matter.”

“How can you--?”

“It doesn’t,” he insisted, looking between her eyes. “The deities that allowed this planet to be accessible by ship are gone, dead before either of us were even stardust. Even if the planet is full, you won’t be able to find it if it doesn’t want to be found. It could be in Wild Space, or the Unknown Regions, or anywhere.”

“If I’m using a ship to find it,” she clarified. Ben nodded, eyes imploring her to understand what he believed he knew for certain - that he was unfindable.

Rey knew better.

“But if I’m using gateways, I’ll be able to step foot on this planet as me, as a real, solid person, in two days?”

Ben blinked. “Gateways?”

“I’ve done it once,” she reminded him. “But it sucked my energy dry because the planet was still morphing from waxing to full, right?”

“Rey--”

“And I passed through an improper portal, following our bond instead of the access points,” she said slowly, piecing together the truths of her journey previous. “But if I did it right…”

“No.” Rey blinked, looking up at him as he looked away.

“No?”

His face, so jovial such a short time ago, had fallen, a shadow passing over his features as anger took root. “No,” he repeated, his voice hardening. “Last time you couldn’t even stand up on your own after a few minutes here, and the aftermath…” He trailed off, working his jaw as he sorted his thoughts more quickly than Rey could catch. “This, finding gateways, passing through portals? It could kill you, Rey.”

“Or it could bring you back,” she countered, finally taking that step away from him. He reached for her, as though the distance was too much, before his hands fisted and fell to his sides. “I’ve been telling you since the beginning that none of this made any sense to me if you weren’t by my side. My goal has always been to bring you back, why are you angry now?”

  
“And I’ve said since the beginning that you need to let me go,” he replied, making Rey roll her eyes. “I’m dead, Rey.”

“You’re not.”

“I  _ am. _ ”

“You  _ were _ ,” she stressed, shaking her head. “You  _ died _ , but you’re not dead, Ben. I  _ feel it _ in every part of me.” Ben was shaking his head, opening his mouth to disagree, and Rey pressed her hand against his chest. Waiting with bated breath until that thump, distant, half-lost in the stars, the echoing cavern of his chest, beat beneath her palm. The very real, if impossible proof of his life right there, pumping blood through his veins beside her own.

“Ghosts don’t have heartbeats,” she breathed, looking up at him. Her fingertips danced up his shirt, coming to rest against the base of his throat and stroking carefully. “Ghosts don’t breathe.” Her voice was a whisper as she slowly stepped toward him again, feeling his intake of air against the pads of her fingers. Dragging her hand up, she spread her fingers against his neck, palm pressing into the side, feeling him swallow, the way his skin heated beneath her touch. “Ghosts aren’t  _ warm _ .”

She pulled him down and kissed him.

It was soft and tender - a whisper of flower petals against skin, dragging the blossom of her lips against his. Pressing closer, chasing the springtime of his embrace. Her tongue traced the seam of his lips, and he opened for her like she was the sun, swallowing her whimper as he took control, tilting her face back and ravaging her lips. No longer a flower, but a rainstorm.

How could he not feel the absolution of their destiny? Written together always, a book with separate beginnings but a single ending. His death was a minor inconvenience for them to overcome, just as the war had been, just as Palpatine had been. Her bones were weary, fighting for him an uphill battle - but the plateau was coming, she could  _ feel  _ it.

And when it came, then finally,  _ finally _ , they could lay beneath the stars, count the constellations, without fear of something descending to tear them apart once more.

He pulled away, exhaling a shaky breath, lips bruised and hair mussed where she’d carded her fingers through it. Eyes hooded, lips pursed, he huffed out a chuckle.

“If anyone can do it,” he finally said, closing his eyes, as though the next words out of his mouth were impossible even to him. “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

Rey’s next words were a whisper between them. A secret for his ears only, with only the forest around them to bear witness. “I’ll be here. In two days, I’ll be here. I swear it.”

A throat cleared behind them, and Rey’s eyes widened, looking up at Ben, who wore a similar expression. Like they were both children, caught stealing dessert before dinner.

“Please don’t tell me you’ve been there the entire time,” Ben begged their unexpected guest, the woman Rey had completely forgotten about.

“Not the entire time,” she answered, and Rey refused to turn around and meet the knowing gaze she could feel boring into her back. There was humor in her tone, an exasperated smile Rey could picture on her impeccable features. “I figured I’d come back as your time wore down, give you two some privacy.”

“I imagine you have a reason for your interruption, then,” Ben said after a moment as Rey took a comical step back, head down and shoulders hunched, still much too embarrassed to look up. Ben let her go, eyes trained on the figure as a blush crept up his neck.

“Just a reminder to Rey,” she responded, and Rey felt her shoulders stiffen. The woman knew her name? Well, of course she did - a being of the Force. But that in itself made it much more awkward. To know nothing of a woman who knew at least something about her.

Rey cleared her throat. “Yes?”

“Follow the _ loads _ to Mortis,” the woman answered, and Rey blinked, eyes finally looking up to study the exasperation on Ben’s face. It may have even been funny in any other situation, but Rey felt her own cheeks heated with embarrassment, her arms crossing in front of her body, trying to make herself smaller.

But… that sentence resonated, and it took a moment to remember where she knew it. She whipped around, wanting to ask the woman if she knew the final part of the puzzle - one of two she had yet to figure out - but the space behind them was empty.

Ben exhaled a weary sigh. “She’ll do that,” he explained, taking the step toward her she’d distanced them with.

“Who is she?” Rey asked, staring at the empty space the woman had inhabited a moment before. “And her reminder - I know that sentence. It’s the last piece of the riddle to find you, but it makes no sense.”

“Ahsoka Tano,” Ben answered the first question. “And I’m not sure. You must figure that part out.” Rey looked around, watching as the shadows stretched around them.

“We had so much longer this time,” she said, a cadence of awe in her tone as she stepped toward Ben for a final embrace. “Is it because of the full phase nearing its peak?”

Ben didn’t respond, leaning down and kissing her forehead as the black began to outgrow the white. He rested there, allowing them that moment to  _ be _ that he’d been waiting for. Rey reached out, fisting her hands in his robes and closing her eyes as the light erupted around them. As the world shifted, she felt him pull back slightly, his eyes tracing her features. He pulled her close, chuckled against her skin, and she glanced up to see surprise in his warm brown eyes as the light swallowed him, a delighted smile stretching his cheeks.

“Cyar’ika, is that my shirt?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' atchu hella late with an update.
> 
> Like a full week I'm so sorry guys. I'm really trying. I'm so tired.
> 
> Thank you all so, so much for the overwhelming support in my last chapter regarding my occupation. Things are still hectic, and the emails have not stopped, but I've been working through this chapter as often as I can.
> 
> And ngl I've been playing Animal Crossing to turn my brain off when I should have been writing but I'M REALLY TRYING GUYS. Extra long update to make up for it, right?
> 
> As always, my work is unbeta'd by anyone except me and I did not beta this chapter as well as I should have. But! I still hope you guys like it! Please let me know!!
> 
> As I said in my last chapter, if you have any questions or concerns regarding COVID-19, please reach out to me. I know that this stuff is scary so if you just need a shoulder to lean on, I'm here. You can find me on [Tumblr](http://makeshifcandy.tumblr.com) and [Instagram](http://www.instagram.com/ebongawk) (which I forgot to mention in my last update because I'm seldom on there BUT I get message notifications on my phone so you can still message me!)
> 
> I hope you guys like the chapter! I'll update when I can, I promise. I'm sorry the chapters aren't weekly anymore but I'm doing my best <3


	16. Endings

The small trunk was filled with her belongings; her pen set and parchment, Ben’s clothes - including the sweater she’d been reluctant to take off that morning - Leia’s pendant, the charge card Poe had given her, the Exegol wayfinder and the compass Luke had used to find Ahch-To. She also threw in the two spare changes of clothes she had and an extra pair of boots she’d mended after finding them in one of the closets of the Lars estate.

There was enough food and water in the X-Wing to last her a week, as well as a spare unit of fuel, just to be safe. She’d gone through the farm, turning off the generators and the solar power, making sure all the moisture pumps had stopped turning and the reservoirs were emptied, selling what little she’d turned out the past two days in town. Everything else was packed up, stored neatly within closets and cabinets. A just-in-case precaution, in the event they needed to return here. Or a nice surprise for the next person who happens across the estate.

Rey looked about the homestead, her shelter for nearly a year, a mix of hope and fear in her chest. This place was safe, a home she’d found for herself. Where she felt closer to her ghosts, to her past, to the name she’d forged after discarding her discovered surname. It was crucial for her to go out, to find Ben and bring him home. It was a little terrifying to remember that home was not this place.

BB-8 and D-O rolled up hesitantly as she loaded her belongings and supplies into the X-Wing, asking her where they were going, if they’d all fit in the small ship, why she was packing her things. She just smiled, tucking the trunk into the cargo space. She walked over to the edge of the property, holding her hands out and feeling the energy of the two sabers buried in the sand, exactly where she’d left them. She curled her Force around the familiarity, a silent goodbye to an empty grave.

“BB-8,” she said, walking the droids back into the opening foyer of the home. The small droid looked up at her. “Override command to primary user: Rey of Jakku.”

The droid’s lens blinked, then unfocused as she took control. A small numeric pad shifted out of BB-8’s frontal panel, and she input the personal passcode Poe had helped her set up when she was still training on Ajan Kloss. BB-8 beeped an affirmative, and Rey put her request in, stepping back as the lens focused on her.

She took a deep breath, then smiled at the camera. A real, genuine smile - one of excitement, of expectation, of anticipation. And she began to speak.

Her voice cracked near the end, and she swallowed around it, finishing her message to her friends before powering down the video. BB-8 beeped once more, the indication that her recording had been saved. Still using the manual override, Rey pursed her lips, setting a timer on BB-8 with a sad smile. Another moment, and she closed the keypad, BB-8 beeping and whirring back to himself. He looked up at her, asking her what she’d just done, if he was broken and that’s why she couldn’t just ask him for what she needed.

“No, you’re not broken,” she assured him, placing a hand on his head. “I just have something I need to do. You’re perfect as ever, I promise.”

“Rey?” D-O asked, and Rey reached out, placing her other hand on the smaller droid’s head.

“You two have been my primary source of company for months,” she told them both, blinking back tears that seemed to originate from nowhere. “And I am genuinely appreciative of that. This desert planet wasn’t what any of us had in mind after the war ended, but you stuck by me anyway. Thank you.”

BB-8 whirred, rolling in front of her feet and stopping her as she stood up to leave.

“No,” she smiled down at the small droid. “I’ll be back soon, though. You two wait here.”

“If you’ll be back soon, why are you taking your belongings?” D-O asked, and she knew it was out of genuine curiosity, not anger or disbelief. Taking a deep breath, Rey shook her head.

“I have to make sure I have whatever I need for this quick errand I’m running,” she responded. “You stay here. It shouldn’t be long, I promise.”

With that, she turned, climbing the steps out of the foyer, then crossing the courtyard, knowing if she turned back she wouldn’t be able to let go. Her droids stayed put, incessantly compliant even as they asked questions that she didn’t, _couldn’t_ answer.

When will you be back?

Why are you going?

Why can’t we come with you?

She’d never had any other being rely on her before. Even when she held the fate of the galaxy precariously in her hands, it never really seemed as though every person, every planet was hers to shoulder. She was a byproduct of a fate out of her control, and saving the galaxy, destroying Palpatine - that was a given, a choice made for her by the universe. She merely played puppet to a much larger destiny.

These two small, mechanical children though - they had been hers to shelter, to fix, to scold and to keep safe. Hers to look after. They _relied_ on her for that.

But they hadn’t belonged to her, not really. While she’d upgraded D-O after finding him on that abandoned ship, taught him to trust people, rewired his circuitry - it was not the first time she’d left him, even if it was quite possibly the last. And BB-8 had always belonged to Poe, he had no quarrels about reminding everyone in the room of that.

Climbing into her X-Wing, the corner of her eye caught a flash of blue from the courtyard stairs, and she smiled as she began her takeoff sequence. The droids would remain safe, she was certain of that - though she was leaving, the distress signal she’d timed to go off five minutes after her departure would have Poe and the others crossing the galaxy to make sure it was another fluke, or that she’d just fallen through a stone wall again. The Jawas wouldn’t have time to find them, Poe and Finn and Rose and Chewie somewhere in the mid-Rim for a diplomacy hearing, likely jumping up to help Rey as soon as BB-8’s message came through. They’d find the droids, but no Rey, and once one of them asked a question she knew was certain to come up rather quickly, BB-8 would replay the recording she’d left behind.

She hoped that they would understand.

Her X-Wing idled, and she looked down, finding a pair of familiar brown eyes trained on her. Rey grinned, and the responding smile was as breathtaking as it had been in life. A nod of understanding, of _hope_ , is all the certainty she needed to know she was on the right path, that the steps she was taking were leading her toward an end goal she’d only dreamt about.

After all, the droids weren’t the only things relying on her now.

Ben was out there, sitting, waiting for her in that incredible meadow on that impossible planet. A planet she’d be stepping foot on soon - she was sure of it, her fears and uncertainty dashed by the soft smile looking up at her from a house that wasn’t home, not really. Not when home was a pair of arms that held her like she was the most precious thing in the galaxy. The figure waved as Rey took off, and excitement gripped Rey’s heart as she sped off into the sky, a streak like a shooting star across the sky, headed toward the next step of her journey with more confidence than she had when she’d woken up this morning. Because she was _going to_ find him, she was _going to_ bring him back - that’s why her ghosts showed up, to bid her goodbye and not good luck, because they knew. Next time they saw her, it would be with Ben in tow.

After all, who would know that better than his mother?

…

Waves crashed, rolling against the island outcropping in huge bursts. The tide fell back, then reared up, chasing the shoreline, chipping away at the tiny bits of rock, curling and twisting through the jagged edges as water fell back to the sea, only to press again, hoping to gain more traction, to steal more island for itself.

Rey watched for a few moments as she transferred her few things from the bulky trunk she’d used to transport them to a waterproof rucksack of Luke’s that had been left behind in his small stone hovel. It was designed to secure to one’s back, easier for moving quickly and through different terrain.

She wasn’t sure how deep into Mortis they may need to go, but she knew that the entire planet was covered in every imaginable type of landscape, and it was necessary to be prepared for whatever situation the Force may throw at them.

Rucksack against her back, lightsaber secured to her belt, Rey stood as the waves rolled, spraying saltwater with deep heaves. Like the ocean was breathing, panting against the rocky shores from exerting all of its energy into trying to bring the island into the sea. She’d always found the island beautiful, even during its many rainstorms, or when the cold ripped through her clothes and stuck to her bones. There was a peacefulness about the mayhem, an underlying calm that settled beneath the tempest. Like lying at the bottom of the ocean as the waves above pummeled the seaside.

The X-Wing sat on the outcropping like a trophy, shining proudly in the muted sunlight that seldom made an appearance. Ragged still, she never quite found it in her to restore the exterior paint, the waterlogged colors a reminder of the wars this ship had seen, the destruction it had lived through.

It would stay here, on this shore, waiting for the next moment, the next pilot that would return it to the stars. Uncertainty surrounded her as she climbed the cobbled stone steps, of whether someone would find the ship, restore her as Rey once had.

Something told her Rey would be the last pilot that ship would see.

The climb to the temple was as breathtaking as the first time, wind whipping through the island as black clouds moved in slowly, the promise of rain on the horizon. Sun filtered lightly in through the cloud coverage, highlighting the morning dew on the grass. She felt light, airy, even as her legs burned with the effort of scaling a mountain. The nuns talked about her in hushed tones as she marched with purpose through their village, disdain evident in their voices even as they spoke in their foreign language. Paying them no mind, Rey gave a polite nod before continuing on her way.

She wouldn’t be here long, anyway.

Stopping for a breath, she looked out over the oceanside, a small poggle of porgs waddling along the cliff face, headed toward a nest nestled in the rocks. Squawking indignantly, they herded along like small soldiers off to battle, unbothered by the wind as it whipped more hurriedly, the rain coming in faster than she’d initially anticipated. Taking shelter from a storm they could sense.

A few droplets pattered against her face when she finally reached the temple, ducking inside and making her way up the steep stone steps. At the precipice, taking another moment to breathe, Rey looked out over the dimly-lit temple. The nuns always had torches lit along the walls, and some natural light filtered in from the high windows, though not much. She imagined this place was once full of treasure - statues of long-forgotten Jedi, books much like the ones in the library she’d taken from the Uneti tree, weapons, scrolls; everything one could conjure when considering the ancient religion. Now, it was an empty cavern dug into stone, nothing left of the Jedi here but the runes carved into the walls and the small mosaic pool in the room at the top of the stairs.

Her destination.

She’d not taken the time to appreciate the intricacy of the picture that collected water drippings from the ceiling during her last journey, too hell-bent on forcing Luke to either come away with her and help the Resistance or train her so she could do it herself. Now, standing on the ledge, the portrait taunted her. Black and white rocks swirling through crystal water, pieces of land and earth brought together to form something beautiful, something mysterious.

It only ever reminded her of balance. And, much later, of her and Ben; a dyad, two halves of a whole, mixing light and dark. Swirling together like smoke, a dance of extinguished fires between matches never meant to burn out.

She sat on the ledge, crossing her legs beneath her as Luke had taught her once, what felt like lifetimes ago. Her goal now was not to feel or understand the Force - she knew it well, feeling it wash around and through her every moment of the day. The mixture of her energy and Ben’s in her veins, how it interacted with the Force outside, distinct to only herself.

Perhaps one less trained, with less knowledge absorbed from their dyad, would not see the difference between her energy and the energy of any living creature, but she could _feel it_. It pulsed with its own heartbeat as she moved through the world, lit up with its own constellation of stars when she closed her eyes.

And Ben…

He looked at her like a lighthouse on a dark shore. The waves of darkness crashed and rolled around him, pulling him into a riptide, attempting to tear him apart, but he only had eyes for her - the beacon in the black. A northern star meant to guide him home.

Fingers outstretched, hardly grazing the water, Rey hoped with every piece of her that she would be bright enough to pull him back from the ocean of the dead.

Closing her eyes, Rey stretched her senses, taking a slow breath in through her mouth, letting the taste of rock and stone wash over her tongue. On her exhale, she dipped her fingertips into the water.

“‘The waypoints are only accessible during the fullest phase, across the vergence,’” she recited slowly, softly, feeling her power as it moved and flowed between the water particles. This - being here, on this island, in this temple - was her first step. She felt it as assuredly as she felt her own skin wrapped around her bones. “‘The doorway is behind the mirror, the darkest place of the darkest hour. One must shatter to return whole.’” Her brow furrowed over the next part, remembering how Ahsoka Tano emphasized it in her vision with Ben. “‘Follow the loads to Mortis.’”

The room shifted around her, turning sideways until there was nothing beneath her body. It crumbled like dirt beneath her hands, evaporating and trickling away, droplets of dew in the sun. The Force shifted, as well, calling out a silent siren’s call from the depths of the ocean in the pool before her. She felt the water not beneath her fingertips, but all around her, encompassing the room, spreading but not suffocating as it danced like confetti over her skin.

_You ask a great many questions._

The voice was soft, spoken in tongues and translated so quickly that it very nearly sounded like basic to her ears. There was a fluttering in her chest, and Rey had to struggle to keep her eyes closed - as though the phantom would slip away, a shadow against the ground, if she dared attempt to gaze upon it.

“I seek answers,” she responded carefully. The room vibrated, the water calling out in a frequency too low for her ears.

_I suppose you do_ . She could very nearly make out the shape, the silhouette of a person, but it must be her eyes playing tricks on her, still jailed behind her eyelids. _Ask carefully._

Rey shifted through her thoughts, looking for what she thought was the most vital piece of the puzzle, knowing this being she’d summoned would answer a single question and nothing more.

She thought over the riddle.

The doorway is behind the mirror…

Her mind wandered, remembering another mirror on this island, carved out in the darkness, enticing her with answers to the wrong questions she had chosen to ask. How that hope had culminated in her chest, timing with the beat of her heart, pumping through her veins like blood because finally, _finally_ she would have answers.

The disappointment had threatened to drag her back down into the bone-chilling water she’d spluttered from, falling through the crevice the island had awarded her like a ragdoll.

She remembers the climb to that darkness, the interruption in her misguided, forbidden journey. The expanse of skin in muted lighting, the shouts of rage, of misunderstanding, begging, pleading for answers that not even he could provide.

“Who did I see?” she asked, her voice coming of its own accord. “Beneath this island, in my vision in the cave. Who did I see?” Not her parents. Her own reflection, yes, but prior to that.

The room echoed another vibration that she felt in her own stomach, a chuckle from the being beyond space and time that she’d called upon.

_Child_ , it spoke, a soft timber of a voice she recognized but couldn’t place, somewhere deep in her memory. _You already know the answer._

Another breath in, and Rey opened her eyes.

She was suspended, still sitting cross-legged with only the Force holding her aloft. Hands outstretched as though touching the pool of water, only now, the fragments and droplets floated with her, surrounding her like rain frozen in time. With her exhale, it all fell at once, a rainstorm across the cave floor coming down in a single sheet, a few falling onto her hair and clothes from above.

She allowed herself another moment of collection, then slowly drifted back down to the stone, standing on uncertain legs.

The doorway is behind the mirror.

She picked up her bag and saber off the floor, shaking off the water that had fallen and looking out into the darkness of the island. Rain was falling heavily, pounding a storm into the island. And she wondered if the water would raise the ocean levels, even infinitesimally. If the clouds were doing all that work for nothing, knowing that the water pouring down in a rage would hardly chip away at the dirt, would only be absorbed back into the ocean, a furious outpouring that would end up changing nothing.

Clenching her jaw, she began the descent back down the island. Her feet were leading her toward the hole in the stone, the spongy black vines that crept from nowhere like tangible tendrils of ink, reaching to suck the life from whatever happened across its path.

The doorway is behind the mirror.

It was obvious now, and she laughed humorlessly at herself. Why else would she have been led to Ahch-To first?

Grumbling, she pulled her cloak hood over her head, useless against the torrent of rain as she practically slid down the hill.

She should have asked about the loads to Mortis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idk if a group of porgs is called a "poggle" but it is now.
> 
> Ey yo waddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' atchu with a REGULARLY SCHEDULED UPDATE yay for me!!
> 
> Things aren't any less crazy, I'm just not really sleeping anymore so here's an update!
> 
> This incredibly GORGEOUS moodboard was made by our very own LOVELY [LINDSILOOWHO](https://lindsiloowho.tumblr.com/) who is an absolute GEM of a person and the moodboard made me cry. It so perfectly encompasses the visualizations of the meadow, and the Force Beast, and guys, you take my writing seriously, that's just more than I could have ever asked for. I've never had anyone make me fan art, and this time I've had TWO. I want to frame them and put them on my walls.
> 
> I might, actually.
> 
> Thank you, thank you, thank you all so much for reading. We've got Rey making Discoveries™, we've got some mysterious Force Jedi dead person talking to her (I know who it is, but I'm not making it obvious lol). We've got Rey taking STEPS toward an uncertain future with more confidence than I want to say she has ever had.
> 
> We're getting there, children. Slowly but surely.
> 
> Jk my last fic was like 180k words, this one is almost a bullet train by comparison.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Sorry if it was a little slow - another one of those necessary chapters to pull the plot further forward.
> 
> I love you guys! See you next time!!


	17. Like Rain

A Chiss leader stood at a podium, her long hair coiled tightly against her head in an interesting, complicated braid that Rose sort of wished she had the hair to replicate. Keeping it short had better suited her for crawling beneath machinery, easier to pull back and stick beneath a cap, or wrap up close to her head if she was squeezing in somewhere particularly narrow.

Now, though, the Resistance no longer needed a repair technician. The Resistance no longer needed much of anything - they’d all but disbanded the small group of rebel fighters after the war on Exegol, sending pilots and officials to every corner of the galaxy in an attempt to rebuild the Republic once more.

Rose always considered them lucky - though Hosnia was an incredible tragedy, the First Order had little time to extend their reach as far as the Empire had, so many years before. And when Kylo Ren had taken the helm, the procuring of galactic colonies had slowed down exponentially. Ren had been quick to attack any and all planets accused of aiding the Resistance, but dominating the neutral territories had almost been put on a back burner, so to speak.

As though he had considered something else far more important than galactic conquest.

Rose leaned forward in her seat, arm propped up beneath her chin as the Chiss leader continued speaking about managing trade routes and signing peace treaties.

This was an important meeting. The Chiss, hidden as they were in the Unknown Regions on their home planet of Csilla, shirked any and all alliances for as much of history as was recorded. That they were willing to align themselves with Poe’s _Republic Restored_ was a huge deal, would open up Chiss space to new territories and trade routes. They could establish hyperspace lanes, open the economy, assist in building a new Republic fleet.

But it was just so _boring_.

The Chiss demands were not unreasonable - they wanted a place in the Galactic Senate, they wanted to be able to build a Chiss embassy on the Republic Restored base planet when that decision was made, they wanted control over where and when the hyperspace lanes would open. Poe had no disagreements, but he was doing his best to put up some amount of resistance, to make sure the Chiss were more enthusiastic about the allegiance and wouldn’t back out. This was an enormous win for the Republic Restored, would pave the way for other galactic embassies to get on board with rebuilding the Senate, mounting more excitement about trade routes into the Unknown Regions.

Rose suppressed a yawn.

They’d already been in this meeting for four hours. Rose projected that it would last another four hours, if not longer, depending on the number of interjections from Republic sponsors sprinkled around the meeting chamber. Poe had insisted she wear a dress fashioned to resemble a traditional Alderaanian nobility uniform, to remind those represented in this room that, though Leia Organa had passed, her legacy was still very much alive - though Rose had grumbled that even _Leia_ had stopped wearing anything to discern her nobility from Alderaan years ago. But the fabric of the dress was thick and weighted, chafing against her back and arms in a way that drove her close to insane if she thought about it for too long. And at this point she felt she had nothing to do _but_ think about it.

A buzzing in her pocket distracted her from the droning of the Chiss representative, and she shifted subtly, reaching her hand into the ridiculous amount of fabric at her side and digging around for the source of the vibrations within her skirts. She, Poe and Finn had loaded their things into the concealment offered by her dress, any necessities they thought might be of use, as Poe and Finn were also in traditional Alderaanian garb which was apparently sewn pocketless.

Nobility had no need for weaponry, after all.

Fingers circled around a small, rounded object, and Rose slowly pulled it out, looking down once her hand was securely in her lap at the welcome distraction.

Her heart sank.

“What’s going on?” Finn whispered from beside her, as though feeling her discontent, leaning close so his breath fanned out against her neck. She suppressed a shudder, looking down at the small binary beacon in her hand as it buzzed intermittently.

“It’s BB-8’s distress signal,” she informed him quietly, glancing around the room. No one seemed to have picked up on their hushed conversation.

Worry consumed Finn’s features all at once, and he pursed his lips, shaking his head. Sifting through thoughts on full display as they passed over his face. He settled on disbelief. “What if she just fell through another wall again?”

“BB-8 wouldn’t reach out over that unless…” Finn blinked.

“Unless she didn’t come back,” he finished. Rose nodded, brow pulling together as concern wrapped around her skin, making the uncomfortable dress feel even more restrictive. “We have to go.”

“What’s going on?” Poe asked under his breath, glancing at them from the corner of his eye as they moved to leave. Rose held up BB-8’s beacon, and Poe nodded once. He tapped Rose’s skirt as she shifted, and Rose nodded, somewhat more hastily sifting through her skirts until she was able to pull out Poe’s handheld telecom. He tapped a quick message, and Rose felt her pocket vibrate again as her own telecom received it.

No one paid her and Finn any mind as they slipped quietly out of the conference hall. She reached through her skirts, grabbing the telecom and reading Poe’s message.

_Leave my X-Wing. I’ll be there to join you after this._

Rose nodded as Finn read the message over her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him along the hallways toward the VCX light freighter they’ve been piloting. “Rey needs us.”

Something whispered in her ear that they were already too late.

* * *

There was no life-altering vision this time when she touched the mirrored cave beneath the island. Nor did it come when she smacked the wall, punched, kicked, or screamed at it to let her in.

She’d waited, patiently, for the suns to go down, busying herself by snacking on some of the provisions brought from Tatooine, fiddling with her lightsaber, Leia’s pendant, the other various things she’d kept along with her. Once the moons had risen over the subsiding storm, she’d stood, pressing her hand against the mirror and ushering her Force through the cracks, waiting for the wall to open up like it had on Tatooine.

Nothing happened.

Hours passed, irritation thrumming through her blood, making it rush through her body faster and faster as she grew more and more agitated. The walls echoed when she screamed, and her knuckles were bloodied with her aggression as she attempted - and failed ridiculously - to get it to abide by her wishes using her fists. The rock had dug into her bruised hands, scraping tissue away and leaving fresh pink flesh in its wake. They ached when she flexed her fists.

The moons were beginning to set over the horizon, making the shadows stretch opposite to where the light from above was able to reach. Rey sat heavily against a boulder, watching as the moonlight hit a strip of the mirror and cast a prism of color over the stone floor and walls. It danced against the uneven surface of the mirror, glistening like water as the colors moved with the moons.

This was her only chance. The only way she could ever hope to bring her dyad back.

And she was a failure.

There was no time to sleep and find Ben, and the being from her vision in the temple would not return even if she begged. Utterly alone and totally lost, without even a droid for company.

She wonders how they’re doing. If Finn, Rose and Poe had followed BB-8’s scheduled distress signal. If they’d watched the recording she’d left for them, puzzled over her voluntary disappearance.

She wondered if there would be grief. If there would be understanding, or anger.

Rey wondered, fleetingly, if they might hate her.

The feeling passed like a breeze as she stood again, wiping away the dirt and blood from her palms and approaching the wall again.

The moons above dazzled, a timeless dance through the sky. Two gods rushing across the horizon, trapped in a constant game of chase, one reaching for the other and falling short every time.

Is that all she and Ben would ever be?

Rey closed her eyes.

“‘The doorway is behind the mirror,’” she recited softly, pressing her hands against the cool cavern wall. “‘The darkest place of the darkest hour. One must shatter to…’”

Trailing off, Rey stepped back, eyes scanning the wall.

“The darkest place,” she repeated, glancing behind her. The moons were ending their journey through the sky, too far past the small opening above to even see anymore. Soon, they’d dip beneath the horizon completely, lost just before the suns would begin their ascent.

"The darkest hour,” she realized. _The witching hour_. The small window after the moons had set and before the suns rose. When the world was enveloped in a soft darkness, nothing but the stars to illuminate the sky, winking out one by one as the suns climbed higher and higher.

When this cave would likely be near black.

_One must shatter to return whole._

_Shatter._

Rey stepped back, unclipping her lightsaber from her belt as the moons fell and using it to light up the small patch of cave floor on which she stood, frantically whipping it around as she searched for…

 _Ah_.

The rock was heavy, nearly impossible to pick up with one hand. Eight inches in diameter at least, perhaps twice that around. She sheathed her saber, clipping it to her belt as the moons disappeared completely, whatever small patch of light they’d been giving her suddenly extinguished.

Two deep breaths in as she hefted the weight against her abdomen, Rey stood a moment.

_The darkest hour..._

_Ben._

_I’m coming._

She wrapped the Force around her like a blanket, burrowing beneath its covers, beneath the safety and comfort that came from her sixth sense. Her energy and Ben’s thrummed in unison beneath her skin, a gentle pulsing that had her moving before she realized what was happening. She felt that energy as it expelled from her fingertips, pulling the rock in her hands beneath the cover until it was nothing more than an extension of herself.

She could feel the life that pulsed just outside the cave. Nothing grew here - she knew that during her last visit, the squawking of the porgs a distant melody, the circumference of the entrance full of nothing but black vines and decay. But just beyond that, the life of the island vibrated in beautiful, expressive hues. The porgs that nestled along the cliff wall a mere twenty feet away were fast asleep, having kept warm and dry during the storm. The meadows of overgrown grass, now overhydrated, shivered as beads of water stuck to their stalks, draining the excess moisture into the ground to give life to new brethren. Insects burrowed in the cold dirt, feeding off microorganisms of life too small to see, absorbing nutrients like an airlock.

Inhale. Exhale.

_Darkest place._

Two steps to the right, eyes still closed, her arms moved of their own accord, the rock now weightless in her hands as she lifted it above her head.

 _Shatter_ , she willed the mirror.

The rock flew.

The glass sounded like music as it splintered. Soft, slow tinkerings of the mirror as it burst out around her, more of a slow-motion explosion than a break. She felt fragments like leaves in the meadow on Mortis - suspended, glittering even in the darkness from an unseen lightsource. Though she did not open her eyes as she stepped through, she could _feel it_ , feel the light reflected on her skin as she passed through the mirror, crossing the threshold as the glass separated to create a pathway.

The air here was much colder than the cave had been. She stopped a moment, pulling her cloak tighter around herself and listening as the glass moved and tinkled behind her. Risking a glance back, she watched the last few fragments fall back into place, effectively sealing her behind the mirror.

She exhaled a puff of breath as doubt crept up the back of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

 _Ben,_ she thought to herself, directing her line of thought toward the empty space where he once resided. _I’m afraid._

She hoped he could hear her, even if he wasn’t able to respond.

The darkness enveloped as she moved further away from the mirror, taking short, tentative steps that echoed on unseen walls. It didn’t feel like there was anything tangible beneath her, as though she was walking on nothing, on air, even as her soles made their noise of proof with every step. She wanted to unclip her saber, use its light to illuminate the darkness, but a childish fear in her mind whispered that perhaps the sleeping beasts she imagined hiding in the corners were best left unseen.

Minutes or hours later, the barest amount of light was becoming visible in the distance, and Rey’s steps became more confident, excitement overtaking the fear as she hurried toward the possibility of _sight_ , something she now knew she’d been taking advantage of her entire life.

It was as she neared the light source that the uncertain floor beneath her really _did_ cease to exist, and Rey went tumbling. Instinct outweighed surprise, and she was lightning quick to tuck her head beneath her arms, bending her knees as she rolled impossibly far down a hill that had been indiscernible from the ground in the darkness. The Force reacted as she did, becoming a bumper between her and the ground, a thin shield to protect her from the worst of the impact.

With an _oof_ , she finally landed on her back on flattened ground, the air rushing from her lungs all at once. Staring at the black backdrop of - _sky? ceiling? -_ Rey allowed herself a moment to catch her breath and asses for damage. She’d fallen enough while scavenging warships in the Jakku desert to know to move slowly, to stretch her fingertips and toes first.

After a few seconds of assessment, she determined that a scraped knee and a possible cut on her elbow was the extent of her injuries, and Rey rolled to her side, intent on getting up.

And she stopped.

The location where she now found herself was unlike anything she had ever seen.

Pathways of light ran in sloped, curving lines along the plane, leading toward huge, ornately decorated windows of blackness. They curved upward, reaching a zenith point that was out of sight, and plunged into nothing beneath her feet. All around, pinpricks of light dotted the backdrop, constellations making up this never-ending place that stretched for eternity around her.

Like she was standing among the stars themselves.

Rey pressed onto her knees, staring in awe. She was no longer cold, the ache of her wounded hands and newly-bruised skin forgotten as she stood. Drawn toward the windows, she paused only upon hearing a whisper in her ear, a caress of sound, followed by another, and another.

_… named must be your fear before banish it you can…_

_… strike me down, I shall become more powerful…_

_… one’s ever really gone..._

_… and me, kid. Whole damn galaxy against us…_

_… my master could never be as vile…_

_… just as important as what we fight for…_

_… know what I have to do…_

_… start with meditation, then move on to…_

Rey paused, her jaw trembling with emotion as she struggled to keep moving. Because she recognized some of those voices as they crawled across her skin like insects, past conversations, words she should have no idea about, words that have yet to come. The Force shimmered incorporeally around her, miniscule shockwaves of power cresting like the tide as time flowed and ebbed like rain. Not linear at all, she realized with a huff of strangled laughter.

Stopping amongst the black windows, Rey closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to suppress her emotion. She needed to find Ben, couldn’t afford to get sidetracked by the intangibility of time.

The windows stood, equal distance apart and stretching for eternity, pure black against the empyrean starscape around her. She knew, somehow she knew, that every window would lead somewhere different, across every planet and to any point in time.

If she stepped through the wrong one, she wouldn’t be able to find her way back.

Ben would be lost forever, floating between life and death without peace.

But how will she know what the right doorway is?

Uncertainty burrowed beneath her skin, sinking down to the marrow of her bones as she looked out over the innumerable windows. So many, too many to count, stretching farther than she could see. Finding the right one is a one in a million chance. How the _fuck_ is she supposed to know what is correct? The cavern in the back of her mind echoed hollowly when she called for Ben, a reminder of the distance between them, of how completely alone she was in all of this.

What would he do, though, were he here beside her?

Rey closed her eyes, listening again to the whispered voices as they melded together around her. Searching, at first, before realizing that the Force would guide her. She shut down the rest of her senses, reaching out with her feelings and allowing them to extend throughout the space. Impossible to fill it up completely, but stretching still until she could stretch no more.

The bag strapped to her back felt heavier with every movement, weighed down even as the rest of her felt so light. After a moment, she heard voices, her body moving of its own volition to follow.

_… if there is to be balance, what you have seen must be forgotten…_

_… It did not have to be this way!..._

_… we are the ones who guard the power…_

_… always knew there was good in you…_

_… we are the middle, the beginning, and the end…_

A warmth pulsed against her back, and Rey faltered, eyes blinking open as the rucksack slipped from her shoulders of its own accord. Looking around, the innumerable windows seemed unchanged, still lit oddly against the backdrop of stars. It was impossible to tell if she had moved at all, everything blurring together as the mixture of voices whispered quiet conversations had long ago around her.

Bending down, the rucksack seemed almost to _move_ as it sat against the ground. Brow furrowed, Rey dug through the pack for the source of the gesticulation. Her fingers collided with something abnormally warm, something _vibrating_ , and she flinched before reaching further, grasping the things and slowly pulling them out.

The wayfinder first, and she reached in again to grab the compass, both of them pulsing wildly with their own beats. As if these small tools could be _excited_ about something, nonexistent hearts beating like hummingbird wings. They were both glowing, warmer than pieces of metal and stone ought to be. Like they had been wrapped in hands warm with life.

Rey blinked, staring at the two pieces incredulously. _What the hell…?_

She clicked the compass open, looking at the source of the glowing - the small blue lodestone in the center, used for direction to help navigate toward Ahch-To. Not as attuned to the Force as a kyber crystal, but with some ethereal properties all the same.

The wayfinder, too, throbbed with its own red glow from the lodestone within, the two pieces pulsating with the same rhythm. Two inanimate objects suddenly became very animated as she followed the voices, as though trying to direct her in their own…

_Follow the loads to Mortis._

_Follow the_ lodes _to Mortis._

Rey gasped, standing and nearly tripping as the rucksack strap caught around her ankle. She paid it no mind, hardly remembering to grab it as she held the two navigational instruments in trembling hands.

Follow the lodes to Mortis.

Flipping both of the things upside down, she searched the outside panels, looking for something, anything that might indicate _how,_ exactly, she could follow the stones.

Rey tucked the compass into her robes, focusing on the wayfinder. The stone was inside, locked behind glass and what Rey could only assume was poured molten rock allowed to dry.

She paused a moment, pondering.

Why would the creator choose to seal the wayfinder in such a way that prevented it from being taken apart? The compass tucked into her robes was open, pieces melded together with Force and technology, the same as any lightsaber - always accessible, always waiting to be meticulously disassembled and remade into something new. Whoever had created this had encased it imperfectly in stone, leaving only the most viable points accessible to ships’ navigational systems so one might find Exegol. Like they were trying to prevent a person from using the mechanism for anything else.

Centering herself, Rey took a slow breath, holding the thing in both hands and focusing. The stone surrounding the piece was grainy in texture, like a chunk of sand she’d found that had been struck by lightning long before she drew breath, during the first and last rainstorm Jakku had ever seen. It felt as though it should break apart just from holding it. But the divets told a story, ushered in a new understanding of the technology she held in her hands.

When the stone had been poured, sealing the Force and the lodestone inside, it had _screamed._ There was agony, pure and unfiltered, buried like a secret within this pyramid. As though the original use for the wayfinder was lost, encased in a tomb of concrete and tossed into a graveyard not meant to be found. Tears spilled down Rey’s cheeks as she absorbed that pain, like using the Force to heal Ben on Kef Bir, reversing the wound that caused such suffering and stitching scars back together.

“Be whole,” she whispered to the wayfinder, feeling it warm further in her hands. “Be free.”

The rock crumbled to dust in her palms. Eroding away like an avalanche.

The dark side was so warped in pain and misery that she’d never before noticed the wayfinder as it cried for help. When they’d faced Snoke together, Rey had held Ben’s lightsaber for a mere moment, but she remembers the feeling of the crystal within. It had thrummed with power, with _hunger_ , yes, but with _anguish_ nearly deafening in her ears. As though the crystal warred with itself every moment, tearing itself apart to taste greatness. Clinging to the darkness with bloodied fingers scraped down to the bone.

This was a quiet misery. A soft sobbing, so distant it may have been the rattling of the wind against loose window panes. As though the wayfinder had resigned itself to its fate of being used for so little of that which it was capable, too many years spent abused and mistreated.

It practically _beamed_ as the last grains of silt fell away, dust carried away in an unseen breeze, falling into the nothing that was her starry backdrop.

The pyramid in her hands was composed primarily of transparisteel and glass, the navigational star charts far more visible without the obstructing stone. The edges were an odd metal she had no name for, black in the shadows but nearly copper when held to the light.

It positively hummed with excitement as she inspected the gleaming corners, watching as the lodestone within still pulsated with the same glow to match the compass stowed away in her robes. She pulled it out once more, holding them together, and it was almost as if recognition overcame both pieces. Two halves of a whole, reunited after too long spent apart.

Her Force reacted to the proximity of the navigational pieces, finally complete and without obstruction, and she felt her energy as it poured into both mechanisms. They whirred to life together, the four sides of the pyramid falling one by one to reveal the red lodestone within. The compass reacted similarly, the top hatch clicking open and the internal dial spinning as the outer casing whirred, clicking apart through separate pieces, flattening out to become a wider and thinner circle. The blue lodestone separated, raising up on a small peg, and the red lodestone did the same.

Like the two were reaching for one another.

The clicking of movement slowed to a stop, and Rey held two very different devices in her hands than she had a moment ago. The top hatch of the compass had stretched, too, and experimentally, Rey lifted it, sliding the lodestone of the wayfinder through the hole in the hatch traditionally used to view the blue stone of the compass. With a twist, they locked into one.

The pieces heated in her hands as she puzzled them together, whirring and clicking, the metal and transparisteel and glass transforming once again, latching together in a dozen other places. The pegs holding up the two lodestones crossed, the stones touching, and she half-expected them to meld together the way the rest of the apparatus seemed so inclined.

Instead, the stones pressed together, the glowing blue and brilliant red combining until a bewitching amethyst phosphorescence smoldered in her hands. It grew brighter, hotter, coming to a focal point where the two stones met.

“Mortis,” she spoke, though her voice felt not her own, an echo of a past that didn’t belong to her. Ages of ancients vicariously looking for the same nexus.

A blazing beam of light erupted from the stones, extending first into the sky, then falling, a cascade of orchid trailing behind, until the beam came to a sudden stop, pointing straight ahead.

Rey settled her erratic heartbeat with a few breaths.

“Follow the lodes to Mortis.”

So she did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' atchu with a (very) late update.
> 
> I don't even know what day is it. Wednesday? Is it Wednesday?
> 
> SO, a bit of narrative oversight on my part - I forget that not everyone has obsessively read the TROS Visual Dictionary, and therefore would not know that both the wayfinder to Exegol and the compass to Ahch-To would use the same component - lodestone - to channel the Force and create a sort of pathway leading to the prospective locations. I should have mentioned it WAY sooner in the story, and I apologize for that.
> 
> If you're into the ethereal and metaphysical, then you are probably already familiar with lodestone. If not, I'm happy to explain!
> 
> Lodestone is a natural magnet, in the literal and metaphysical sense. So it attracts metal, yes, but it is also said to attract certain conditions - mainly positive, though it's whatever energy you put into the stone that it will reverse and expel out. Lodestone is often used as a stone of balance and guidance, as well, as it allows you to see duality in most situations and also will guide you toward the best path.
> 
> So. I'm not sure WHAT the creators of Star Wars were getting at with that (insert eyeroll emoji here).
> 
> Combining the navigational pieces was my idea, though. JJ Abrams can't take that from me.
> 
> I apologize for not having a better-rounded story. I have never in my LIFE used an outline, and my dumbass wasn't about to start now. I think the storyline would make more sense if I'd included some of those little details, so I genuinely do apologize for that.
> 
> ANYWAY.
> 
> Our space nerds are SO CLOSE. Is anyone concerned with how Ben is doing? Because I sure am. Where is that kid? What is he doing?
> 
> Who knows.
> 
> I also really enjoyed writing from Rose's perspective. It was a nice change of pace.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Love you guys! See you next time!


	18. Conversations

_ Hand pressed against his heart, feeling the distant, stuttered thump in his chest, Ben Solo stood in the unmoving meadow of Mortis, his opposite hand still halfway-reaching toward the space Rey had occupied some minutes or hours before. _

Ghosts don’t have heartbeats.

_ The muscle trapped beneath tissue and bone agreed with her sentiments. It whispered against his ribcage as if a prisoner, reaching weakly through the bars of a jail cell. A reminder of an impossible existence, staggering between physical and corporeal on the thinnest wire. _

_ He wondered to which side he may eventually fall. _

_ Rey’s fierce determination and fiery justification that he wasn’t  _ dead _ , as he should be, gave way to a new sort of ache. A longing, a sensibility he hadn’t named in such a long time. Long before his demise, before he’d become Supreme Leader of the known galaxy, before he’d donned the name Kylo Ren. _

_ When he was still young, still Ben Solo, too tall for his age, carefully wrapping a meager number of belongings in a rucksack as Luke waited patiently in the downstairs foyer of the apartment he shared with his family. Looking at a repaired Y-Wing model sitting in its reserved spot on his dresser and knowing the next time he saw it, he’d be a Jedi Padawan, taking the steps toward becoming a Jedi Knight. _

_ For the first time in more years than he cared to count, Ben had hope. _

_ It was foreign. The feeling burrowed beneath his skin, beneath tissue and muscle, wrapping around his nerves like ribbon and stretching throughout his entire body. It electrocuted his senses back to life, sending shockwaves of faith through his nervous system, stimulating his blood to expeditiously rush through hollow veins. _

_ Even more foreign was believing in someone so exponentially that he was ready and willing to put his entire life in her hands. _

_ When he’d chased Snoke across the galaxy, submitting to the constant berating and abuse suffered within his mind, it was with the knowledge that he’d likely end up dead. Though he expected it to be at the hands of the felled Knights of Ren, or by Snoke himself, the assumption that his life was no more than a bargaining chip was not lost, even on a bright-eyed almost-Jedi who’d just had the rug ripped from beneath his feet. _

_ Every path ever traversed had been lain before him in the most meticulous plot, he knew that now. The Palpatine bloodline had been lost for nearly two decades with two parents and a misshapen dagger, but the Skywalker bloodline was announced and paraded like a trophy of war. The former Emperor had no control over his wayward granddaughter’s steps, but the grandson of his finest pupil practically begged him to dig trenches leading to a single destination. _

_ Rey is the one that helped him crawl through the muck and bone of that battlefield, out of the walled trough to stand on his own two feet for the first time in all his three decades. _

_ He wondered if he would ever stop stumbling with every step. _

In two days, I’ll be here.

I swear it.

_ Her faith astounded him once more, knocking the breath from his lungs with the vindication of her words. That someone believed so much - believed in  _ him, _ of all people. She had her choice of any being in the galaxy, and her heart rested in his hands. _

_ He would cherish it, he vowed to the empty meadow and any being that may be listening. He would tuck her away carefully, keep her safe for as long as she would allow him. And if a day came she decided she was no longer his to worship, he would conceal away whatever feelings he had for her and be whoever she needed him to be. _

_ Enemy. Companion. Friend. _

_ Lover. _

_ Whatever she needed, Ben would contort himself to fit that mold. _

In two days…

_ “I’ll be here,” he whispered to nothing, to no one, to  _ her _. “I’ll wait.” _

_ His space was invaded all at once by a presence he hadn’t felt in far too long; a memory, a ghost of a signature, and Ben whipped around, eyes widening at the unwelcome guest. _

_ “Not really like you have much choice,” the figure shrugged. _

_ His chest felt heavy, a knee pressing against his breastbone, making it harder for his lungs to pull in oxygen. The ghost at least had the humility to look sheepish, hands folded behind his back and shoulders tucked up slightly. Nothing at all like the proud man Ben had faced as a youth. _

_ “Hey, kid,” Luke said. Ben only stared, teeth clenched so tightly he wondered distantly if they might shatter. If he would even notice the bone splintering beneath the weight of his shame. Emotions whirred a maelstrom in his head, mouth opening to speak before snapping shut with an audible click. Luke held up his hands in surrender, taking a half step closer that Ben automatically mirrored with a half step back. The old man - not at all the same man Ben had faced on Crait, he realizes now, hair more gray than golden, hanging down nearly to his shoulders - had the audacity to look hurt by Ben’s involuntary movement. _

_ “I know,” Luke sighed, rubbing a hand through his beard. “Not the divine intervention you were looking for, I’m sure.” _

_ Ben just stared, willing the ghost to fade away. There was nothing left of him that Luke could tear away now, no amount of groveling to be done that would erase the past of lies and deception and darkness. Perhaps Ben would have accepted an apology years ago, but not now. Not standing before him, a visage of life cast in blue, both in various stages of death. Apologies are meaningless in the afterlife. Ben stood his ground, squaring his shoulders and waiting for his uncle to leave. _

_ Luke sighed wearily, closing his eyes for a moment. “I should have seen your connection sooner. You and Rey. Both equally as stubborn.” _

_ “Don’t you dare bring her into this,” Ben surprised himself when the words slipped past the barrier of his teeth. “Don’t you dare talk about her like you have the right to say her name.” _

_ Luke’s eyes widened, mouth pulling into a grimace Ben nearly didn’t recognize. The jovial, careless man he’d been once seemed even further away. Was this really the man who had faced the Knights of Ren alone on Elphrona? And done so with a smile? “However short amount of time it was, Rey was once my student.” _

_ “Another thing she and I have in common,” Ben spit, leaning into the anger he’d held toward his uncle for as many years as he was Kylo Ren. It no longer felt like a comfort, an old friend; now it just left viscous bile in his throat, turning his blood to sludge and his bones to foil. “Seems you have a habit of leading your students to death.” _

_ Luke took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and when he opened them, Ben once more stood before the teacher and Jedi Master he’d revered for more than two thirds of his life. It was harrowing, exhausting to watch Luke flip a switch in his mind and go from ashamed and apologetic to Knight of the Force. _

_ “Rey’s sacrifice was her own choice.” _

_ “You forget that I heard them, too.” Ben’s hands fisted at his sides. “The Force is loud to those who are listening. I heard the Jedi speaking to her as clearly as she did.” _

_ “And with their guidance, Rey was able to overcome Sidious and save the galaxy from enduring his tyranny once again.” _

_ “Yes, and it cost her her life, and subsequently mine. And where were you?” _

_ Luke blinked, unabashed, but did not answer. Resentment burned in Ben’s chest, so different from the indignation he once held toward his uncle. Purer, not blinded by uncertainty and fear and misguided hatred. It dripped down his esophagus like coagulated blood, leaving the taste of decay in his mouth. _

_ “I’ve heard stories of Master Yoda and Master Obi-Wan manipulating the Force post mortem - stories that  _ you  _ told me.” Hands shaking, he took a step toward Luke, more difficult than he might have imagined. “More than ten Jedi came to Rey, ten claimed constituents of all that is Light, with enough power and manipulation after death to  _ speak _ to her. And no one -  _ no one _ \- helped her when she fell.” He could feel the binding in his chest growing tighter and tighter as he took another step forward, manacles squeezing his ribs until they threatened to crack. _

_ “The Jedi do not intervene with destiny, or the will of the Force.” _

_ “Don’t patronize me about the will of the Force,” Ben nearly shouted. “The will of the Force was  _ never  _ this. The galaxy begged for balance, and the Force gave it myself, gave it Rey.” His jaw trembled with more emotion than he’d harbored in months. “How was it the will of the Force to rip that away from her?” _

_ “Rip  _ you _ away from her,” Luke corrected calmly, and Ben, for the first time since he’d thrown it into the depths of the Kef Bir sea, desperately wished he had his lightsaber, if only to release the tension by igniting the blade. “This is why you would have never made a proper Jedi. You have always been far too selfish, too passionate.” _

_ “Yes, I remember the quiet comparisons to Anakin Skywalker,” Ben spit the words between them like venom, but Luke was unphased. _

_ “Passion is a shared experience among all conscious life,” he responded, ever calm and nearly bringing Ben’s rage to a boiling point. “That is one thing I believe the Jedi got wrong. Passion exists in lothwolves defending their mates, in Banthas protecting their young. In their hubris, the Jedi believed passion could be extinguished to achieve totality with the Light. But to do so defied the nature of so many.” Luke sighed deeply, unnecessarily, wasting oxygen. “This is how Darkness had the opportunity to rise.” _

_ “I do not need a history lesson.” _

_ “And I’m not offering one,” Luke admitted. “It was my mistake, trying to suppress that passion, Ben. Perhaps if I’d taught you to harness it, use it as a beneficiary to your latent power, you would not have been lost enough to seek solace with Snoke.” _

_ “Rich of you to believe that I sought Snoke out on my own, rather than the man infiltrating my head before I could even speak.” _

_ Luke pursed his lips, his expression crumbling with a self-inflicted sadness that a small, nearly-infinitesimal part of Ben wanted to apologize for. He looked away instead as Luke answered. “I know, Ben.” _

_ “I am past the point of expectations with you, Uncle,” Ben used the word like a curse, shaking his head. “This conversation is over.” He turned away, waiting for Luke’s presence to fade and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the former Jedi would not depart until  _ he _ made the decision. A dismissal would not suffice. _

_ Luke was quiet for a long moment, likely sifting through his thoughts as he formed a coherent response. Ben felt his anger as it pulsed with its own heartbeat, erratic and unpredictable. Almost foreign, it had been so long since he’d used hatred as a crutch. _

_ Almost unwelcome, but he’d never admit that. _

_ “I never awarded you the benefit of the doubt,” the older man finally acquiesced. “The Jedi preach the rejection of all emotion that could coincide with the Dark, and yet it was my arrogance, my own hubris, that led me to believe my training would be enough to keep the Darkness at bay.” _

_ Hands fisted at his sides, Ben refused to turn around. Luke’s eyes bore into his back as desperation filled the air. _

_ Ben had never been good at forgiveness. _

_ “When I came to you that night--” _

_ “Don’t,” Ben interrupted. _

_ “It was with the prospect that I could extinguish whatever dormant darkness lay within your soul.” Jaw working, clenched, bone biting down on bone to stop the trembling, Ben nearly turned around, but no. No, he would not afford his uncle the satisfaction of watching him crumble. “I watched you give way to your anger in your moments of vulnerability, use it to your advantage when under duress.” _

_ “I do not need you to explain to me my own reactions--” _

_ “But that night.” There was regret in the old man’s tone, and Ben finally risked a glance back. The Jedi Knight had folded in on himself once more, hands wringing circles around each other as he stumbled through a confession Ben had never anticipated. “That night, I didn’t…” _

_ “Out with it,” Ben demanded when Luke trailed off. “Offer your repentance so I can refuse it and you can leave.” Luke closed his eyes. _

_ “It wasn’t  _ you _ , Ben,” Luke sighed. “I pressed into your mind, your energy, to find the source of the darkness that seemed to leak out so seldom, and I was overwhelmed with what I thought was everything you kept hidden away from me during our training.” Ben blinked. “I was a fool to believe you could harbor so much without my knowledge. You’ve always worn your emotion on your sleeve.” _

_ Wanting nothing more than this conversation to be over, Ben turned away again. Because he has no idea if this discussion is one he can handle. Hearing the truth, what he’s always known but been far too afraid to acknowledge, cut him down to his bones. It sunk beneath his skin and deeper, infiltrating tissue and organs, feasting on his marrow and leaving him hollow. _

_ “It was Snoke,” Ben filled in when Luke did not speak again. _

_ “It was Palpatine,” Luke agreed. “Unaware that we were being monitored, I looked into your mind and saw only what he wanted me to see. Saw what you could become, if I didn’t intervene somehow. The lapse in judgment that caused me to ignite my saber, the catalyst that started your fall to the Dark Side was orchestrated, and I wasn’t prepared for it. I wasn’t able to prevent my own fear and doubt from creeping in. I couldn’t properly assess my own actions before they erupted, and you were gone.” _

_ The lump forming in Ben’s throat felt as though it might suffocate, pressing on his airway and choking off all sound. Tidal waves drowned out all other noise, crashing into his ear drums and sending droplets of saltwater into his eyes. Because yes, of course,  _ of course _ it was Snoke - Sidious - and not Luke. Never Luke, who practically raised Ben for thirteen years. Never Luke, who continued to cultivate and harness Ben’s power even with the looming darkness that seemed to hang like a cloud above his nephew’s head. Never Luke, who looked into the emotionless mask of Darth Vader and saw a father, saw Light where none had been in decades. _

_ Ben’s anger toward his uncle evaporated like water in the deserts of Jakku. Years of hatred used to fuel a fire that burned Ben’s soul to life, cascading darkness through the caverns of his spirit like a thunderstorm, gone in a single moment. Even as unwelcome as the clinging detestation had been in the purity of his and Rey’s meadow, it was harrowing, nearly debilitating to have it all ripped away at once. _

_ It took strength Ben didn’t even know he had to keep standing. _

_ “I’m sorry, Ben.” Luke delivered a proper apology, so unlike the one delivered on Crait. Something too heartfelt to come now, here, of all places. “Truly and unendingly. I will never atone for the distress I brought upon you.” _

_ “Why did you come here?” Ben’s voice cracked, and he pursed his lips, trying to swallow around the clay mass lodged in his trachea. _

_ “You asked me once, not all that long ago, if I reappeared after all that time to save your soul. I hadn’t then, and I’m not now,” Luke answered the question Ben wasn’t sure he was strong enough to ask. “It was never mine to save. Never your mother’s or Han’s, or even Rey’s. You were put on a path that was laid before you without choice with walls higher than most could ever hope to climb, and you managed to veer off of it. But saving your soul was always a feat meant to be had on your own. I’m hoping my explanation offers you the tools you may need to heal properly.” _

_ The presence faded before Ben could offer any rebuttal or snide comment, but he wasn’t even sure he could muster the ability regardless. He leaned heavily against a neighboring tree, wishing beyond hope that his mother or Ahsoka or Rey might fill the silence that now permeated, forcibly dragging him from the complex thoughts that threatened to swallow him whole. _

_ No one apparated to offer solace. Rey did not come barreling through the underbrush with a wide smile and glimmering eyes, Ahsoka did not put a heavy hand on his shoulder and offer cynic advice he wasn’t sure how to follow. Leia did not appear to tear open his heart anew and dump its contents onto the grass beneath his feet. _

_ He was alone. _

_ Seems he ended up that way often. _

_ Even his anger at the Jedi for leaving Rey for dead seemed gone, lost somewhere deeper than he was willing to dig right now. The gospel of the trajectory of his life being so far out of his hands he could never hope to reach it was almost comical. Maybe in another life, he might laugh. But now, years of anger and hatred centered around a man who had almost as little choice as Ben bore down on his shoulders, too much to handle all at once. His knees buckled. _

_ And Rey. His thoughts drifted to her, magnetized. Beautiful Rey, standing alone in the Tatooine desert, staring out over a twin sunset with hope in her heart. How could he ever lay himself bare and tell her that her efforts to redeem him were futile? He’d clung for years to a false sense of righteousness in the disdain he felt for Luke. Her hope that he’d be beside her the next time she watched those twin suns dance through the sky felt even more impossible. He did not deserve her, nor did he deserve a second chance to repair the sadness and dread he’d sewn into the tapestry of the galaxy. _

_ How could he right his wrongs when those he’d wronged were dead? _

_ Finally collapsing beneath the weight of his own remorse, Ben leaned against a neighboring tree. The bark was rough against his back, scratching through the thin tunic he wore as he peered up at the pure white sky of Mortis. _

_ A storm moved in all at once, clouds opening up and spilling droplets down his cheeks as he closed his eyes. _

_ Funny how the rain didn’t land anywhere else. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' atchu with a very late update.
> 
> Candid real life time: I'm very tired. My best friend lost her uncle to COVID-19 over a five-day period, and there's nothing she can do because her family lives in another country and, of course, all the borders are closed. I had a conversation with an ER doctor out of NYC whom I think about every day, because he's spent almost two months treating virus-positive patients, and when he gets sick, coughing and wheezing his way through our conversation to the point where he has to pause every ten or so seconds to breathe, it's with the knowledge that the hospital at which he works will not allow him to get tested because they are saving the tests for patients. I have been berated, screamed at, and sobbed to by people who are just scared, and I don't blame them for their outbursts. I work in healthcare, as I've mentioned, and my job is quite literally sucking my soul dry. I cried no less than six times this past Tuesday because everything sort of caught up all at once.   
> On the bright side, my two coworkers whom I adore ALSO cried all at once, so we were like a big, bleary-eyed mess and our boss took us to get coffee as an apology for things that are completely out of his control.
> 
> (You'll never see this, but sorry, Matt!)
> 
> My updates are going to be sporadic for the foreseeable future, until I can find some amount of balance, but I WILL be updating. I promise all of you that. I am not giving up on this story - I have the rest of it outlined in my mind, and I know exactly what I want to do with the next two chapters almost to the letter.
> 
> Sexy time maybe? Who knows????
> 
> Me. I know. I know what happens.
> 
> (There will be more than 2 chapters that's just what I have almost completely hashed out so far)
> 
> Anyway, back to story time.
> 
> Here we see me giving Ben Solo a glimmer of hope only to have it ripped away when Luke comes to have a conversation that SHOULD HAVE BEEN HAD IN TROS but we won't talk about that. This poor boy and his unwillingness to accept that he does, in fact, deserve good things.
> 
> Mental illness is a bitch.
> 
> I don't know if it's been outright stated that Luke was under Papa Palpy's manipulation when he went to Ben's hut that night, but it's heavily implied in The Rise of Kylo Ren comic series (which is just absolutely incredible btw if you're able to I highly recommend picking it up.) (You get to see lil baby Rey feeling Ben's fall to the dark I actually cried.) (I cry during a lot of comics though tbh. Almost every Vader comic series has made me cry.)
> 
> Anyway. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are absolutely wonderful, but you can also find me on [Tumblr](http://makeshiftcandy.tumblr.com) if you just want to talk, or if you need a shoulder to lean on, I promise I'm here.
> 
> Until next time! <3


	19. Conflict

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

A deep sigh, air escaping the lungs from crevices seldom used. A nose bridge pinched between two fingers. The sound of frantic rummaging, mumbling beneath breath about impossibilities and how there has to be something more, how that can’t be all, it  _ can’t _ be.

“Finn,” Rose began.

“No, she wouldn’t  _ do that _ ,” Finn responded before Rose could finish her thought. “BB-8, play it again.” The small droid looked at him, making a sad whirring noise as his projector powered on once more. A tiny visage of Rey filled the space, cast in the blue of Beebee’s holoprojector with a smile on her face that was as pure as Rose had seen it in months.

_ “Hey guys,” _ the small projection began, her head tilted to one side as she stood up straight after crouching over BB-8’s control panel.  _ “I’m sure this comes as something of a shock, doesn’t it?” _ The tiny Rey scrunched her nose in something akin to joy, making the lump in Rose’s throat that had been forming since they’d arrived on Tatooine even more prominent.  _ “I’m sure you rushed here, and I thank you for that. I didn’t want BB-8 and D-O left alone for too long. You know those Jawas are scavenging constantly.” _

The visage sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.

_ “If it isn’t obvious, I’ve left Tatooine. I was here only temporarily, though I know I never really explained that.” _ Finn knelt next to the visage, looking as closely as possible at the small projection, as though he could see some type of deception in the tiny face. An inconsistency that Rose knew in her heart of hearts he wouldn’t find. _ “I came because I was searching for something. Or, actually some _ one _. And…” _ Rey trailed off, a distant look on her face before a grin overtook her mouth, so wide it almost looked painful.  _ “And I’ve _ found him _. For a long time, I’d nearly given up hope that I could ever bring him back, but I’ve found him out there, waiting for me in some distant corner of the galaxy.” _

The Rey in the projector sighed, and the lump in Rose’s throat expanded, pressing against her tear ducts and threatening to force emotion out. She just looked so  _ happy _ . Rose was almost certain the half-Jedi had never been that happy in all the time they’d known one another.

_ “I’ve left a token of my gratitude for Finn in the main closet just outside the kitchen. Sorry I didn’t have gifts for everyone else,”  _ Rey shrugged, looking somewhat sheepish, still grinning from ear to ear.  _ “I figured Finn would get the most use out of them. As my first and closest friend, you led me on this path that completely changed my life. You led me to a home I didn’t know I could ever have.” _ Rey’s eyes sparkled, shining in the low lighting of BB-8’s projector.  _ “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that. _

_ " _ _ For Poe, I’m giving back BB-8.” _ Rey pursed her lips, quirking an eyebrow.  _ “And letting you off with a warning that nothing had better happen to my ship. Whether I’m gone for a month or ten years, she better be in the exact same condition she’s in now.” _

Even Rose managed a slight chuckle, causing Finn to glare at her.

_ “And Rose.”  _ Rose knew what Rey was going to say. They’d watched this recording at least five times now, Finn repeating it to debunk Rey’s actions, as though he could trace the source of her sudden and unexpected departure and track her from there.

Was it unexpected, though?

As Rose watched Rey smile a watery smile at the camera, she concluded that no, no it definitely wasn’t.

_ “I finally understand the purpose of the story you told me,” _ Rey said, blinking, a single tear escaping her ducts and sliding down her cheek.  _ “I’m sorry it took me so long. But thank you. You understood what I had been far too afraid to admit aloud.” _

Rey pursed her lips again, breathing out slowly between her teeth. Another tear tracked down the opposite cheek, the first droplet of a river that might carve a canyon one day. The distant look on her face returned for a moment as her thoughts crowded her mind, and she smiled another softer, gentler expression.

_ “Don’t hate me,” _ she implored softly.  _ “I’m not being coerced, I’m under no mind control. This is my own volition. I don’t expect anyone to understand my decision, but I’ve been missing half of me for a long time now, and I finally have a chance at being whole.” _

She took a moment, composing herself, before another blinding grin stretched across her face. With a mischievous glint in her eye, she winked at the camera.

_ “I’ve gone to bring back my misunderstood king.” _

Rey leaned over, and the transmission cut out.

Finn turned toward Rose, still glaring.

“What did she mean--”

“Not this again,” Rose sighed, blowing a puff of air up that ruffled her bangs.

“--that she ‘finally understands’ the story you told her?” He actually used air quotes, and Rose would kick him in his jaw if she didn’t appreciate him overall as a person so fucking much.

“I already told you.”

“What you said doesn’t make any sense.”

“Finn--”

“Tell me again!”

Rose glared, narrowing her eyes and marching up to her dearest person, poking a finger firmly into his chest. “Don’t you dare yell at me over something I had no hand in. Don’t you dare take your confusion and anger out on me,” she said sternly. “I’m just as lost on this as you are. I told her that story because of what  _ I _ thought was her truth.  _ I told you _ that I have no idea how she might have interpreted it.” Finn took a step back, running his hands over his face in agitation, though his glance at her was apologetic.

“She wouldn’t just leave!” Finn nearly shouted, no longer projecting onto Rose, but the anger needed to go somewhere, she supposed. “This is so unlike her!”

“Is it?” Rose asked. Finn turned, looking at his smaller partner with a quirked brow. “Finn, Rey was always trying to go off on her own. You just wouldn’t let her.”

“No, no,” Finn waved his arms in an ‘x’ motion, as through trying to physically cut off this particular branch of the conversation. “No, she only did that because she didn’t want us to get hurt. But she wanted us there, I know she did. I could tell. I know her better than anyone.”

“Do you?” Rose asked, folding her arms across her chest. Finn just looked at her from where his face had been buried in his hands. “Finn, I don’t think you knew her as well as you convinced yourself you did.”

“C’mon, Rose.” But the rest of his rebuttal died in his throat, faced as he was with a sudden and unexpected move he never could have anticipated. How Rey just up and left with barely a goodbye. “Why-- why would she say she wasn’t under any sort of mind control, then?”

Rose recognized that he was grasping at straws. Desperate for an explanation into their friend’s sudden departure. “Maybe because the last time she showed something other than total contentment, you accused her of being manipulated by a dead man.” Finn narrowed his eyes.

“Do you think  _ he _ has something to do with this?” His voice came out in a near whisper, eyes whipping around as though Kylo Ren was watching them from the shadows, sinister eyes hiding in the darkest corner of the small kitchen. Rose rolled her eyes.

“You’re so fucking dense,” she fired back, and Finn’s attention snapped back to her, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“What--?” Rose clenched her fists by her side, months of pent-up emotion welling all at once as an ache sliced through her heart, jagged, a serrated knife cutting across muscle. It felt odd, unexpected. Like she was drawing on some phantom energy, something pulling the strings to puppet her emotions from an unseen shadow realm. Or like she was on the receiving end of an echo in the wind, the other side of a chasm to hear the shouting of someone further away than she could see.

“I get that you can’t even realize when someone is in love with  _ you _ , but I swear to every god out there, Rey is the most obvious person in the fucking galaxy, and you still see her as this two-dimensional Jedi-to-be because it fits  _ your mold  _ of who she’s supposed to be!” Rose huffed, pursing her lips as Finn stared at her in disbelief. “She’s not that! No matter how hard she tried to be a Jedi, she’s just not, Finn! I don’t really even know if she ever wanted to be, but  _ especially _ not after Exegol!”

“What do you--?”

“But you’ve spent all this time convincing yourself that you know her better than anyone because you  _ met her first _ that you never really even bothered getting to know her in the first place!” She’d always sort of thought the term ‘seeing red’ was just in holonovels, but Rose was a believer now, anger singeing through her blood like gunpowder as it seeped into her vision. “The  _ only time _ she tried to open up to you about  _ anything _ , you got pissed off and stormed away to watch pod racing with Poe in Mos Espa, and  _ who was here _ to pick up the pieces of your fallout?  _ Me. I was _ . You wouldn't have anything to do with Rey until some freaky Force shit happened and she  _ lost all her emotion _ , and then suddenly she was the person you needed her to be so you were friends again?” Rose threw hands up in exasperation. “How the fuck can you claim to know her better than anyone if you  _ couldn’t even see _ how fucking  _ depressed _ she was after the war ended?”

Finn clenched his jaw.

“Did you not see her in that recording?” Rose asked, exasperated. “Did you not see how  _ happy _ she finally looked, now that she’s found purpose again?”

Finn was quiet as Rose huffed her way down from her anger. His jaw trembled as he processed her words, and he opened his mouth for a second before closing it again.

“Just say it,” Rose spit, though her anger was beginning to melt away, leeching from her blood slowly, like trying to suck out the poison from a snake bite. Finn looked pained as he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Rey was in love with me?”

Rose thought her eyes might pop out of her head with how quickly they bugged.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“I mean, I’m flattered, I think? But she never told me - how was I supposed to know? I could have let her down easy; I had no idea she’d get  _ depressed _ …” He trailed off, rubbing his chin with his hand.

“Oh, for the love of--” Rose stepped up to him, pushing his shoulders back. He yelped, leg stretching out to compensate for Rose throwing off his center of gravity. “She wasn’t in love with  _ you _ , you half-witted nerf-herder.  _ I’m _ the one that’s in love with you!” For the first time since she’d decided she loved him, she was beginning to question her choice. Finn’s eyebrows raised. “ _ Rey _ is in love with  _ Ben! _ ”

As soon as the words leave her mouth, she wishes she could take them back. It wasn’t her secret to spill, wasn’t her truth to blurt out in anger or frustration. Only Rey had the right to confess her feelings to anyone, and Rose had taken that from her.

The anger bled away all at once, a gushing wound opened and sealed in the same breath. It left her winded, her lungs stuttering from the force of its exit, as though something else entirely that had inhabited her blood, her bones, stepped away all at once and she was forced to come back into herself.

Finn was staring at her, eyebrows in his hairline. He glanced from right to left, then took a slow step toward Rose, setting his hands carefully on her shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly, brushing her bangs back from her face. Rose shook her head, trying desperately to catch her breath.

“I don’t really know,” she answered honestly with a slight chuckle. Something akin to disbelief touched her heart, and she stepped back, away from Finn. Away from the space that had taken over her body. “That was… I don’t know what that was. All of the sudden I was just so… so angry, and I hurt so much.”

It had felt very similar to a broken heart. Hurt nearly as much as she had when Paige died, but also more deeply somehow. Like she’d lost something  _ more _ , a connection that was threaded deeper than her sister had ever been. A connection that shared blood didn’t hold a candle to.

Like…

Like she’d lost half of her soul.

Taking another step away, closer to the foyer, the feeling evaporated like rain in the desert sun. It lifted from her shoulders, the oppression that had clamped around her lungs in a vice grip loosening so she could take a full breath for the first time in what felt like minutes.

Is this how Rey felt, all those months?

The thought strikes her unbidden, and the tears that had been collecting since they touched down on Tatooine finally spilled over, a sob choking it’s way out of her throat as she leaned against the entryway.

“Rose?”

“I think maybe…” she trailed off, her voice catching. One slow breath in, an even slower exhale.

Rey, screaming, hands clutching her head in agony, something within her mind trying to tear her apart. Rey, falling to her knees and  _ begging _ whatever it was that had her doubled over to  _ go away, go away, please, please, Ben! _ Rey, reaching toward the empty space beside her as though her demons stood there, offering solace with empty words and cold limbs.

Rey, shuddering as  _ something _ fell away, a shroud seeping into the dirt floor beneath her body and taking every part of her with it. Heaving with exertion as she blinked dazed, glossy eyes at Rose, concerned over Rose’s fretting.

Her eyes hadn’t really been clear since. Not until today, not until that recording.

Rose looked back toward the space in the kitchen she’d inhabited a moment ago, where Rey had been standing once upon a time. Where Rey had called out the name of a person Rose had never known, screaming for help.

Where Rey had lost herself.

What had she done to help her friend find herself? Standing there, screaming at Finn that he never really knew Rey in the first place. What made Rose any better when she hadn’t even known at the time that Ben and Kylo Ren were one in the same?

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Rose said, turning and stomping down the hallway toward the courtyard. She heard Finn call after her, heard mumbling and rustling, the whirring of BB-8 and the confused noises of D-O.

“Wait!” Finn called as Rose marched up the stairs of the courtyard, fumbling, dropping something in the sand with a muted thump. “Wait! Rose! What just happened?”

What had happened? She didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to think about the reverberation of Rey’s torment inhabiting her body, how unbearable it was for even a couple of minutes. How Rey must have felt, harboring that, nurturing it in the months since Exegol. Letting it grow and fester, a wound that was impossible to stop picking at. Oozing the black infection of true heartbreak, an emotion Rose thought she was familiar with once, but no longer.

Rey had been a time bomb, and none of them could see it.

Finn was gasping for breath when he finally caught up, struggling to put his pack - much larger now, brimming with whatever gift Rey had left for him - over his shoulders. BB-8 and D-O followed closely behind as they made their way to the light freighter idling nearby.

He didn’t say anything more, but the furtive glances he kept giving her spoke volumes.

At the base of the gangplank, Rose turned to fully look at him.

“Wherever Rey went,” she spoke hoarsely, pausing to clear her throat. “Wherever Rey went, whomever she’s gone to find, it’s something we cannot help her with.”

Finn pursed his lips, shaking his head slowly. “What if we never see her again?”

Rose thought about it for a moment, looking back at Luke Skywalker’s childhood home in the distance, clear now but soon will be covered with sand dunes once more, a memorial to a legacy that will burn until the galaxy consumes itself.

She imagines Rey, standing cliffside and watching the ocean waves roll, lapping at a rocky shoreline a hundred yards beneath her feet, watching the sun set on some beautiful,  _ green _ planet. Somewhere nameless, somewhere  _ she _ can be nameless, unashamedly squeezing the hand of a faceless man who looks at her like she’s the  _ reason _ that sun is setting on the horizon.

“Wherever she goes,” Rose finally responded softly, laying a gentle hand on Finn’s forearm, “she’ll be happy. That’s all that matters.”

* * *

This place would drive her insane.

Trudging through the endlessness, passing hundreds of ornate mirrors, each calling out to her in soft, pleading tones she wanted desperately to tune out. Following the violet light of her crossed lodestones until her vision began to blur. How long had she been walking? Months? Years?

Hours, in reality. Four, perhaps five. Her body was growing weary, a sleepless night catching up as she surged forward with a momentum that would only carry her a few feet at a time.

She ate provisions while she walked. She thought of Finn and Rose and Poe, finding her message on BB-8, and wondering how they might interpret her words. Angrily, she imagined, except perhaps Rose, who’d always possessed more empathy than Rey felt she deserved. She thought of BB-8 and D-O, wondered if they would remember to check Beebee’s antenna every now and again to make sure it stuck, if they’d think to oil D-O’s wheel before it began to squeak.

Mostly, she thought of Ben.

It was her driving force, the frequency that kept her aloft, kept her motivated. Even as her legs began to burn and her feet grew sore, she pushed forward. Because this impossibly long tunnel had a beacon at the end, a light that would guide her to the only home she ever wanted to know.

The compass in her hands grew warmer as she pressed on, the small pulsing of the device growing more and more rapid as she closed in on the end.

_ “...ey…” _

Footsteps slowed to a stop as a whisper caressed her ear. Rey turned her head, waiting a moment, because it had sounded like…

_ “Rey…” _

Whipping around, Rey held up the compass in her hands as though it might help her see more clearly. Ears straining to pick up the source of the whisper that sounded so deeply familiar. A voice she knew, though the source was lost on her. Locked away in the recesses of her memory.

_ “Rey, we’re sorry…” _

Rey turned again, coming face-to-face with one of the mirrors she’d passed by so frequently, though this one was different. Where all the rest had been all darkened doorways, pitch black nothing, this one almost glowed around the edges. With a slow exhale, Rey stepped up to the doorway, blinking rapidly against the light as it spread from the edges, creeping to encompass the entirety like vines snaking their way through dirt.

An explosion of light, and suddenly Rey was watching a scene unfold before her. Too clear, too precise to be a memory. She was placed like a bystander, an audience to a timestamped reality as it unraveled before her.

A small, dirty girl with tears streaming down her face, looking up at a woman wrapped in a blue shawl and a man with short hair and kind eyes. The woman knelt down, brushing the small girl’s tears away, hands shaking as they ran over her face, through her hair, hovering gently over the three buns on the back of the girl’s head. Tightening the top one like she’d done it a thousand times.

_ “You’ll be safe here,”  _ the woman assured the small girl, her lip quivering, as though she knew she was telling a lie but couldn’t bear the thought.  _ “He wouldn’t think to look twice at this junkyard, not with how much we’ve run.” _

The man knelt, too, taking his wife’s hand in his and setting the other on the small girl’s shoulder.  _ “We’ll lead him away, off your trail.” _ The woman nodded, closing her eyes as a single tear tracked down her pale cheek.

_ “Remember how special you are, Rey,” _ the woman -  _ mama _ \- implored the small girl.  _ “Remember that you are not here forever, this is not your life. This is temporary.”  _

The small Rey nodded, hazel eyes wide as she looked between her parents.

_ “When will you be back?” _ Her voice was so small, so delicate. And her eyes were so aged, older than they ought to be. Alive with the wisdom of a thousand past lives, having seen more than most children in her rearing years, having  _ heard _ more as the whispers of the wind touched her over-sensitive ears. Having experienced too much for one so tiny. She asked a question she knew the answer to, had always known the answer.

The woman took a shuddering breath that broke off in a sob, turning her face into her husband’s -  _ papa’s _ \- neck, clutching the fabric of his shirt as her other clung to the small Rey’s shoulder.

_ “We may not be back,”  _ the man answered honestly.  _ “If we don’t return, Rey, just remember that we love you, we love you so much.” _ He put a hand atop her head, then pulled her in for a tight hug.  _ “We will think of you every moment.”  _ His breath caught on his next exhale, shuddering out through clenched teeth.

_ “You have been our ray of light, beautiful girl,” _ the woman continued, wiping away her own tears.  _ “Rey of Sunshine.” _

_ “Rey Solana,” _ her father said with a watery smile, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders.  _ “Your mother’s name; this is the legacy we want you to carry.” _

The small Rey’s eyes filled, tears falling down her cheeks with a silent grace far too old in nature. Too mature, too dignified for a child barely old enough to read.  _ “Please don’t go,”  _ she begged softly.

The man shook his head, forcing a smile.  _ “We must. We will keep you safe this way, I promise. What you’re meant to do in this life is far too important.” _

A sound, just outside the sandy brown tent they inhabited. Like a ship breaking atmo, speeding toward the ground, a hunter rearing up to pounce on its prey. Both parents exhaled slowly, looking at one another before wrapping the small Rey up in another, even tighter embrace.

_ “Keep her hidden,” _ her father implored the burling beast of a man standing off to one side, a silent spectator to an otherwise tearful goodbye. The Crolute grunted in response.

The ship grew louder outside, and her father jumped to his feet, running off for a moment while her mother kept her wrapped up tight.

_ “Be brave,” _ the woman said, brushing her thumbs under Rey’s eyes to clear away the moisture.  _ “Be strong, my Rey of Light.”  _ With a gentle press of fingertips on the small child’s temple, the woman closed her eyes, focusing for a moment, urging an unseen power into the recesses of the child’s mind and locking her sixth sense up tight. The small Rey’s eyes went glassy for a moment, before she blinked back into herself.

_ “We have to go,” _ the man -  _ her father _ \- said as he rushed back inside. He knelt beside Rey, pulling her into one last quick hug.  _ “Stay safe,”  _ he whispered against her hair.  _ “Stay here.” _

The small Rey wailed, clutching her parents tighter. They returned her embrace for another moment, then gently, too gently, peeled her away, holding each of her hands in one of theirs.

_ “Keep her safe,” _ her father once more implored the Crolute, who was too busy sifting through the exchanged credits to acknowledge the small family’s heartfelt moment.

As they stood, the small Rey crumbled, reaching for them to keep them beside her.

_ “Wait!” _ she shouted as they rushed from the tent, making the move to follow them, but the Crolute appeared beside her, grabbing her small arm.

_"_ _ Stay,” _ Unkar said in his deep, lumbering voice.  _ “You’re my responsibility, at least for now, girl.” _

_ “Mama!” _ the small Rey shouted, scrabbling against the man’s hold, reaching for the tent flaps as though she could part them and drag her parents back with her will alone.

Rey watched the scene unfold with watery eyes, reaching as the small Rey did. She remembered now, the tearful exchange that had been locked away inside her mind. In the same chest of memories her mother had locked her knowledge of the Force within, unopened, untouched before Ben Solo as Kylo Ren came roaring into her life.

It was a pain she’d always carried, a burden on her lungs that had made itself a home in her heart so many years ago it was almost natural. The young Rey continued to struggle, and Rey remembers how painful it was, to watch them run away, knowing they felt it was the only chance they had to keep their daughter safe. The small Rey screamed and sobbed, and Rey reached toward the doorway blindly, as though desperate to console a younger version of herself.

It rippled like water when she touched it.

She jerked back, gasping, blinking as the image buoyed like waves before settling back to right, the small Rey still struggling against Unkar’s grip.

_ “Papa!” _ she shouted as Rey reached again, more hesitantly, fingertips brushing against the incoherent, shimmering image. Her hand shook as it pressed in, gliding past the ethereal glass and hitting a wall of hot, dry air as it came through the other side.

S he yanked her hand back again just as the small girl broke free of the Crolute’s grip, rushing through the tent flaps after the two people she’d only ever known, ever loved. The Crolute went barreling after her, much slower, but--

“I can go back,” she realized, taking a half-step toward the mirror. “I can…”

I can save them.

_ But at what cost? _

Rey breathed, the thought - the  _ voice _ , so familiar - whispering straight into her mind. Eyes glued to the display of the tiny Rey, struggling to run through the sand, the Crolute rapidly gaining on her, feet much more certain after however many years he’d been dominating the trade on this planet.

“They’re my parents,” she responded.

_ They sacrificed themselves for you. _

“Shouldn’t I save them? If I have this chance?” Her heart ached, watching as the Crolute finally got a hold of the young girl again, grabbing her roughly by the arm just as the distant ship began its ascending sequence. She could still hear the girl’s wailing, begging them to  _ come back, please, come back! _

_ What do you lose, if you save them now? _

What does she lose? To rewrite history, to alter the past, would mean to alter the future. Creating an independent timeline stemming from her childhood. One where she’s not anchored to Jakku by false pretenses, spending her life decaying in the too-hot sun, scavenging for parts of which she would never be awarded the full worth. No decrepit AT-AT to call home, scrounging alone in the sand in the middle of the desert, scratching tick marks into the wall for every passing day she’s on her own.

A life where she has parents.

She would remember them, because she wouldn’t have had the chance to forget. Their names, their hearts would be written with hers.

A family. An experience she’d never had.

_ Constantly running. _

Rey purses her lips, taking a shuddering breath.

At this point in her young life, watching through tent flaps as they blew open in the wind, she’d spent much of her time stowed away on a ship, jumping from system to system,  _ running _ from the insidious stain that still scarred the galaxy, even though the majority assumed him dead. She couldn’t remember, but she could  _ feel  _ it - reading lessons by flashlight, buried beneath layers of cargo from whatever ship they’d acquired most recently. Meals had in underground markets on alien planets, walking or running through bustling city streets, always with the fear that they were being followed. Never staying in one place long enough to grow roots; never staying in one place more than a handful of days.

She couldn’t really remember. Wasn’t sure she wanted to.

But she had love. The devotion of parents gone too soon, whisked away and slaughtered when they refused to offer answers.

Finn. His face, his  _ eyes _ , always so open and honest, terrible at hiding secrets. She could tell something was amiss in the beginning, when he lied and said he was Resistance rather than admitting to being an ex-Stormtrooper. But after that, he couldn’t keep anything from her. He became her confidant, her best friend, the first to volunteer his hands when she needed help, to talk her through problems and find solutions. Even if she couldn’t tell him everything, even if she was too afraid, he stood beside her and gave her a shoulder to lean on.

Rose. Who had lost even more than Rey and still stood strong and proud. Her parents, her  _ home _ , and her sister; she faced it all with a grace that Rey could never hope to replicate. Would never attempt to. When the galaxy threw an entire lifetime’s worth of grief at her in a few short years, Rose caught it all and absorbed it, allowing herself a few moments of respite before trudging on, becoming the epitome of resilience in a galaxy bent on tearing itself in two. Determined to do what was right, no matter the cost.

Chewie. Perhaps the only person Rey trusted to correctly pilot the  _ Falcon _ . Perhaps the only person Rey trusted, period. Chewie had never judged her, had looked at her, a dirty scavenger, a desert rat, and saw the potential of an incredible pilot. She trusted him, but he trusted  _ her _ , in turn. To pilot. To lead. To rescue.

Han and Leia. Gone, but imprinted on her heart. Giving her guidance, reassurance,  _ safety _ in a world so without. Leading her onto this path, into this moment, standing in a doorway and warring over sacrificing the future to change the past. Giving her a lifetime’s worth of mentorship in the short time they had with her. Laying down the stepping stones she would follow into her future.

Maz. Who Rey is realizing seemed to always know the truth, the reason for Rey’s emotional outbursts, even when Rey couldn’t identify the cause herself. Who seemed to understand Rey’s grief, acknowledge and heal it without having to say a word. Who gave her advice about life and the Force when Rey had no one else to turn to. Who knew even before Rey did how she felt about Ben.

Luke. BB-8. Lando. D-O. Artoo and Threepio. Poe. Jannah, Kaydel, Zorii, Snap, everyone in the Resistance who had come together, lived and  _ died _ for their cause.

_ Ben. _

What would become of him, of  _ them _ , were she to follow through with this?

The ship in the distance lifted from the ground, blowing sand harshly through the desert so the small girl had to shield her eyes. Her cries grew louder, though barely discernible over the roaring of the engine.

Rey stood a moment longer, then slowly stepped back. The ship ascended until it was merely a dot in the distance, then a streak of hyperspace dust.

The mirror went dark as Rey’s tears fell silently down her cheeks.

The collision course between her and Ben was as inevitable as the colliding of two stars hurtling through the galaxy. Something epic and beautiful, a cacophony of color and light radiating as they struck; a dangerous,  _ impossible _ coalescence. Two beings circling each other like moons caught in the gravity of a star, dancing through the galaxy in an intricacy only seen by the two of them. Hurtling through time and space, connected by the red thread of fate.

But  _ when? _ And  _ how? _ Her parents living means she’s removed from Jakku, giving no opportunity for Finn to find her. And if they failed - if Sidious had discovered their location, killed them anyway and won Rey in the process, what would that have meant for them? Would Ben have stayed with Luke without Snoke’s influence? Become a Jedi, put them on opposite sides of a different war?

Here,  _ now _ , the vibrating tool in her hands, beating furiously as though trying to regain her attention, is leading her to the rest of her life. A future she’d only ever seen in glimpses, through heavy lidded eyes, in dreams not quite her own. A future of somewhere  _ green  _ and  _ alive _ , standing on cliffsides while a sun sets on the horizon, her hand wrapped tightly in Ben’s with no intention of ever letting go.

Warm, whiskey brown eyes looking upon her with utter devotion, that same emotion reflected in her own. Finally,  _ finally, _ she could have him,  _ forever _ , and everything that encompassed.

But she needed to move forward. Not back.

One last look at the darkened mirror, and Rey turned, continuing on.

She needed to be confident in her decision. Somehow she knew that indecision would hinder finding the doorway that would lead to Ben. She bid her parents farewell in her mind, a  _ permanent _ farewell, as the compass in her hands grew warmer. The stream of light, as well, began glowing brighter, closing in on the zenith, the literal light at the end of the tunnel.

A violet beam that connected her heart to Ben’s.

Moving more quickly, Rey sped her steps to a jog, the ache in her limbs fading away as she  _ felt _ her connection to Ben strengthening in her mind. The doorway that connected their minds was alive,  _ glowing _ , like standing just outside of a room behind which a celebration was happening. Not quite open, not yet, but unlatched. Ready to envelope her in the room’s warmth when she was finally able to cross the threshold.

_ Of course _ the temptation of saving her parents would be so near the end of her journey through darkness. Perhaps it was a test of the Force, or perhaps the Dark Side was trying a last-ditch effort of seduction, but Rey could only feel the excitement in her heart mounting as she pressed on, seeing the doorway which the light in her hands touched for the first time from a distance.

She sprinted as it came into view.

Stopping just short of stepping through, Rey watched as once more the darkness of the mirror became overwhelmed with vines of light, exploding outward and showing the picturesque view of a meadow she knew well, but in blinding, indescribable color, no longer the black-and-white of her dreamscape. A breeze blew, rustling the grass, the flowers, unlike any she’d ever seen before.

Tears slipped anew down her cheeks, and this time, she didn’t hesitate to step through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy.
> 
> Hi! Extra-long chapter because my updates have been a little wonky lately? Is that okay? Even if it's mostly a Rose/Finn-centric chapter. Is this even longer than normal? I can't tell anymore.
> 
> My brain stopped working like 3 weeks ago bear with me here.
> 
> A N Y W A Y!
> 
> I wasn't going to include the little interlude with Rey's parents, but idk, it felt like Rey's Force abilities being locked away deserved a little bit more of an explanation. And it's canon that Rey's father was not Force-sensitive, bc Papa Palpy was all "Ew this version of me is an abomination." So I went with the only other thing that made sense outside of Rey (somehow????) shutting HERSELF off from the Force at five years old.
> 
> Also everything Rose yells at Finn is basically me @ JJ Abr*ms lmfao
> 
> Also I'm ending this stupid Rey Skywalker bullshit thank you very much.
> 
> SO.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> What do you think? How am I doing? Are you guys still enjoying this story?
> 
> Next chapter is going to get very interesting ;)
> 
> Let me know what you think! Comments and kudos are keeping me afloat during this crazy time, and I appreciate you all so much <3
> 
> I'll see you all next time!


	20. Phoenix

_ Standing amidst the rolling grass of the meadow, Ben leaned into the breeze as it blew gently, ruffling the contrasting, bright white flowers, their black shadow counterparts dancing to the same tuneless song of the wind. _

__ _ Distantly, he recognized that something was off, but the thought fell further away the longer he stood, listening to the leaves as they struck a chorus against one another. There was peace here, a softness that felt necessary after such a disastrous time spent… _

__ _ What? _

__ _ He shook the thought from his mind as it trailed off, lost and incomplete, a memory that flared to life and faded, like he’d accidentally clicked the holoprojector on and turned it off almost immediately. _

__ _ “Ben!” _

__ _ He couldn’t help the grin that stretched across his face, turning around to find Rey standing at the edge of the meadow. She was so incredible, so  _ bright,  _ that a galaxy full of stars could never compare. He stepped closer, reaching, always reaching for her, ready to wrap her up in an embrace she couldn’t escape from. Would hopefully never want to. _

__ _ “Ben.” _

__ _ Confusion wrapped around a different, more tentative warmth as he turned again to face his mother just as his father stepped up beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Blinking, Ben took an automatic step toward them, stopping only when his foot sunk into the mud beneath his feet. _

__ _ “Ben?” _

__ _ Ice sliced through the warmth of the meadow like a glacial dagger, Ben slowly turning to the left. Tai - young, unmarred,  _ impossible _ \- stood there, flanked by Hennix and Voe, phantoms of a past he’d rather forget. Classmates he’d not thought about in far too long. The flash of Tai, neck bent unnaturally as he fell to the ground, Ren standing behind him with a satisfied, smug air, blew threw Ben’s mind like a comet. _

__ _ “Ben, this isn’t you,” Tai said, shaking his head, the saber in his hands - when had he ignited that? - falling to one side. _

__ _ “Ben, come home,” his father spoke, making Ben turn again. “We miss you, son.” _

__ _ “Ben please,” Rey spoke behind him. He turned again, neck straining with how quickly he whipped to face her. “Please don’t go this way.” _

__ _ “Ben, you still have a choice!” Tai, again. Ben turned again, heart racing. His eyes widened, watching in horror as white, skeletal hands broke through the dirt beneath Tai’s feet, wrapping around the boy’s ankles, bone digging into flesh like claws. Tai screamed, struggling, fear in his eyes as the hands dragged him into the dirt, Voe and Hennix pulled down quickly after. _

__ _ “Ben!” His mother now, Ben’s heart stuttered, the air leaving his lungs as he turned just as those same hands grabbed his parents’ ankles through the dirt, blood trickling down their skin for just a moment before being lost to the writhing cemetery beneath. _

__ _ Thunder rolled over the horizon as whips of blue lightning cut malevolently across the sky. Close. Too close to the ground to be natural. _

__ _ “Ben!” _

__ _ Rey! _

__ _ He moved toward her without turning, but his feet sunk deeper into the mud, swallowing his legs up to his knees. Clawing at the ground, he finally came to face her, watching as she stood proud, shoulders back, staring at him eerily. _

__ _ “Should have let me go when you had the chance,” she said, her voice echoed by something darker, more sinister than Rey could ever be. A voice that came directly from the overhead clouds, from the lightning still illuminating the small meadow. He struggled. Grunting as he tried to pry his legs from the ground. Devoid of expression, her face tilted toward his, and he watched in horror as the hazel in her eyes bled to a bright, unmistakable yellow. _

__ _ She raised her hands - white, bone white, skeletal - and aimed at him. A great, cracking boom echoed in the enclosed space, and the lightning that filled the sky burst from her fingertips. It was just a moment from connecting with his own flesh when-- _

__ _ Ben gasped, sitting up from where he’d been leaning against the tree trunk, looking around frantically for his parents, for Tai. For Rey, her yellow eyes haunting his mind every time he blinked. Still save her, there was still time to save her, he just needed to...  _

_ He took great, heaving breaths, his heart beating an erratic stutter in his chest as he looked anxiously around the radiant meadow. _

__ _ A nightmare. _

__ _ He’d had a nightmare. _

__ _ He’d fallen asleep. _

__ _ Ben stood slowly, arm outstretched to support his weight against the tree. His eyes felt heavy, grainy, the last vestiges of his sleep fading with every blink. Oddly quaint, this sensation - one he’d not felt in months. Since his demise, when he’d looked upon Rey, the warmth and tenderness in her eyes, and convinced himself it was the best image to have as one’s last. _

__ _ He still believed that. Though now he wondered when his true last image might be. _

__ _ The closer Rey came to finding him - and it had been more than a full day cycle, he realized, since she’d last been here - the closer to true humanity he grew. The steps that carried her forward, through whatever peril he knew she must be experiencing now, carried him up, ascending a staircase that would plateau with a normal heartbeat, with an inhale of the humid air of Kashyyyk, or the cold, salty wind of Ahch-To. _

__ _ A place where he would stand beside Rey, sunlight warming his skin, with an undeserved second chance to take her hand properly. _

__ _ She must be terribly near, if sleep was able to claim him so abruptly. He closed his eyes, reaching out to that doorway in the back of his mind, feeling the warm pulsing of her energy, startlingly close. _

__ _ Like she was almost… _

__ Here.

Ben’s eyes snapped open as her light, shining from a beacon he’d yet to locate, filled the entire meadow. She transformed this place just by allowing her energy to touch it, making something he’d once thought beautiful to be desolate and pale in comparison to the warmth she brought upon entering.

He did not wait for her. There was no abstract, invisible wall preventing him from pinpointing her exact location. Her Force was not a stone against the current of this planet’s river of energy. It was a single sun on the planet’s surface, impossible not to trace as he strode through the underbrush. Her emotions hit him like a ship jumping to hyperspace, enveloping his senses all at once; her awe, her trepidation, her excitement. He felt the exact moment she sensed him, as well, just before he broke through the foliage and into what he’d come to consider her ‘entrance point’ during her dreams.

She was brushing dirt off her pants, the gauzy gray dust-coverings over her shoulders blowing in the gentle breeze of the planet. They both stopped as soon as their eyes locked, and Ben could feel his heart hammering in his throat. He studied her as though looking upon her for the first time.

Her hair had fallen some from her traditional three buns. More wisps hanging around her face like a frame. She’d not donned white - no longer trying to exemplify the Jedi, he assumed - but her clothes were a muted gray of varying tones, similar to that which she’d worn when she’d come to him on the  _ Supremacy _ . However many lifetimes ago that was.

In her hands she was holding some type of navigational device though he’d never seen anything like it. Flattened at the bottom, the complex instrument almost looked like two separate pieces melded together. Mismatched fragments of metal shaped around one another and interlocked with a red and blue stone sitting on angled pedestals, so close they nearly touched.

The scholar in him was curious, but that curiosity fell away when his eyes came back to her face and found her eyes trained on him like he was the only thing in the galaxy. She dropped the device carelessly in the grass as her jaw trembled, approaching him slowly, as though afraid he’d fade away if she rushed. Too stunned to move, to  _ blink _ , Ben watched her advance with bated breath.

There was an air of difference between this and every other time she’d come to him. Even the day she’d truly  _ been here _ had felt surreal, with the same dreamlike quality he associated with her other visits. Where she was real, she was  _ here _ , but she also wasn’t.

All of those stolen moments suddenly felt like he’d been dancing with a ghost. The same corporeal detachment they’d faced when the bond had flared to life, connecting across distance but not truly. Her presence was muted, blocked by the Force, by her inability to step foot on this planet without an invitation.

No longer.

His breath hitched in his throat as she came to stand before him, lifting trembling hands. Her next exhale was shaky, as stuttered as his heartbeat.

They’d been here a hundred times before. Spending hours - days, even - reintroducing themselves to one another. Yet this time, with the knowledge that this was potentially the  _ last time _ \- that they were  _ finally _ finding an intrinsically constant balance, constant  _ inclusion _ that ended with simply  _ them _ beside one another was making them both falter. Ben didn’t move, hardly breathed as her quivering hands ever so lightly rested against his chest.

She gasped as she felt his physicality beneath her palms. Her fingers stretched, pressing into his chest as though feeling the give of his tissue beneath her fingertips was the only thing that could ever possibly matter.

So tentative. Why was this so tentative? Every other time, he’d wrapped her in his arms like the concept of letting go was unfeasible. They’d held one another as though every fiber of their being depended on it. Because breathing the same air, the sensation of her lungs expanding against his chest, was the only thing keeping him tethered to this half-life.

His jaw quaked as he reached up, giving her time to pull away if she felt the need. She didn’t. Slowly, he laid his hands over hers, wrapping his fingers around her palms and holding them.

Her breath caught, and he watched in awe as her throat bobbed with a careful swallow. The warmth of her skin was intoxicating, leaving a trail of gooseflesh as her hands slowly crept up, still carefully holding his, until they rested against his neck. She slid her thumbs along the line of his jaw, and Ben couldn’t stop the shudder that wracked his body. Eyes searching hers, he waited.

“Ben,” she whispered, her face erupting into a brilliant, breathtaking smile. An echo of a past life. A heartbreak on the dark planet Exegol hurtled through his mind, and Ben closed his eyes a moment to disrupt the attempted fissure in this new beginning.

When he opened them again, she was still standing there. Still marveling at the feeling of his skin beneath hers, the way his flesh indented with the press of her fingers, the sensation of the tendons in his neck expanding and contracting with every movement, every breath.

The lump in his throat was small but prominent, threatening more emotion then he felt he could comprehend right now. His next blink left his vision glassy, her face doubling for a half second before pulling back together.

“You’re here,” he breathed.

Her own eyes welled even as her grin turned mischievous. “I swore I would.”

“You did,” he agreed, releasing one of her hands to bring his palm up and lay it against her neck. She leaned into his touch, sighing, eyelids falling closed and allowing a single tear to escape. He watched, struck, as it cascaded down her cheek. Leaving a trail of moisture he was almost desperate to wipe away.

She felt it, too.

Smiling again, Rey nodded against his palm.

They moved simultaneously; her hands dropped back to his chest, his arm snaked its way around her waist; she stepped closer, his palm came to rest against the crown of her head; she rested her forehead against his shoulder, he rested his chin atop her hair.

Starved of this. A craving never satisfied.

A touch of electricity, shocking him back to life.

The awkward tension melted away all at once and Rey took a shaky breath, warmth fanning out against the skin beneath his tunic. Her hands fisted into his shirt, and he felt her shoulders shake with a barely-suppressed sob.

“You’re still here,” she breathed after a moment. “I thought maybe I was going mad. That I’d fall through the cracks in the galaxy and be lost forever.” Yet even with that fear, she left without hesitation. Set on the prospect of bringing him back, even when the reality of it was unclear. A hazy view through a fog of surrealism.

He tightened his grip around her, not saying anything but allowing her to feel that yes,  _ yes, I’m here, I never left, I’ll never leave. _

The feasibility of them existing on separate planes suddenly felt impossible. How could Ahsoka be so convinced that Rey would only need to let him go, that they might move on separately? How could he possibly go somewhere that she wasn’t?

Taking a deep breath, Ben inhaled the soft scent of desert sun and wildflowers that permeated from her skin. Something distinctly Rey that he would drown happily in, were the opportunity awarded to him.

However, more urgent matters managed to infiltrate the safety of the bubble they’d wrapped around themselves.

Ben risked a glance up, letting out a puff of breath at the sight of the sky - not the same, abstract color of sun-bleached clouds. It was a softer hue, streaks of pale lavender slowly encroaching the white as the first day of the full cycle bloomed. The hours ticked by beneath his skin, every moment spent here with her hurtling them toward uncertainty.

How were they supposed to get off this planet? She’d come through much the same as she did while dreaming - an invisible wall, a rift in the Force opening to allow her through and sealing to trap them here. The only difference was that this wasn’t a manifestation of their connected energy - this was  _ Rey _ , every physical aspect of her here. On this never-ending planet with no exit.

“We’ll figure it out,” Rey responded to his rising anxiety, the questions that were running through his mind unvocalized, and  _ oh _ , how he missed this. The soft, pleasant warmth of her in his head, a second lifeforce so attuned to his own that they were impossible to differentiate. He wasn’t even sure anymore if he could block her out at will.

Was nearly certain he didn’t want to.

So different was her presence from the cold, glacial space in his head formerly reserved for Snoke. The ice of the former Supreme Leader’s occupancy seeped down into his blood, his bones, until he could no longer remember what it was like to feel warm. Rey was the sun that melted the arctic of his body. Even before Exegol, before the Emperor, Rey was the force that brought him back to life.

She was  _ everything _ .

“But we can figure it out later,” she said after a moment, and he felt her grin as it stretched across her cheeks from where her face was pressed into his chest. He looked down at her, a brow quirked, just as she surged onto her toes and captured his lips with hers.

_ This. _

New galaxies erupted. The sensitive skin of her lips against his caused entire constellations to tear apart and come back anew. The stars themselves paused their orbit as she pulled the breath from his lungs, looking down on them with the same deference awarded to one another.

_ This is everything. _

Hundreds of nights. Every single moment unapologetically stolen. Every press of her lips to his he savored, revered,  _ cherished _ in a place in his memory where there was room for nothing except Rey.

Nothing compared to this. No surrealist, intangible moment could ever hope to hold the significance of a palpable, inexpert kiss. She reached up, holding his face in her hands as she dominated every one of his senses. All he could hear, smell, feel,  _ taste _ was Rey. He kissed her back with just as much fervor, moving, teeth clicking together with their combined inexperience until they found a balance. Until they melted into one another and became a single puddle of  _ want. _

__ _ This is divinity. _

It wasn’t until this moment, this breathless inhale, with his nose pressed into her cheek and his lungs beginning to burn, that he truly understood what longing was.

_ You’re not alone _ .

Whispered words across a flickering fire that he could not see. He thought he’d longed for her then; thought he knew the definition of the word.

_ Neither are you. _

He was a fool.

She pulled away first - he never would, never again - and took a shuddering breath that fanned a curling heat against his neck, spreading down his chest and seeping beneath his skin like spring water. The tips of her fingers brushed through the hair at the nape of his neck, and Ben sighed against her cheek.

He pulled her in again, the idea of any more distance suddenly far too much to bear, and she wrapped her arms more properly around his shoulders as he maneuvered to leave as little between them as possible. Her body aligned with his like a missing puzzle piece. A jigsaw he’d never been able to complete until now. She was not weak in any sense of the word, but she felt like the most fragile thing in the world in his hands.

“Ben,” she gasped against his lips.

He’d always hated his name. The weight of so many expectations settled on the shoulders of an infant with no regard for the strain. Named for a Jedi master, surname of a war hero. Known son of an intended matriarch, known nephew of the galaxy’s savior.

But Rey’s breathless exclamation sounded like a prayer. A singularly-worded hymn and the basis of a religion where the only thing uttered was his name. And suddenly he didn’t hate it so much - didn’t hate it much at all, in fact. If it was  _ her voice _ , a word belonging only to Rey and no one else, he found all at once that he quite liked it.

Distantly, he wondered what it might sound like were she panting it in his ear, her body naked and writhing beneath his, and Ben squeezed his eyes shut to try and quell the thought.

_ No _ , no, she’s  _ here now _ , on this plane, and they needed to figure out how to escape, not--

“No,” she spoke, responding to his thoughts, his  _ intentions _ , and he looked down at her with wide eyes. “We’ve waited enough. We’ve waited  _ lifetimes _ . I already said we could figure everything else out later.”

His next breath sounded more like a drunkenly slurred version of her name, and she pulled him down, pressing their foreheads together as his eyes fluttered closed.

“You can’t hear me as well as I can hear you,” she surmised softly. “I thought I made my objective quite clear.”

No, he supposed he couldn’t. Maybe he was still closer to death than he felt.

“But I can feel you,” he said instead. “You’re all I can feel.”

Rey -  _ gorgeous, incredible, divine - _ managed to pull herself even closer, lips trailing along the line of his jaw, an odd mix of nervousness and resolve blending within her. She reached his neck, pressing a kiss directly to his pulse point. “Then feel me.”

A command whispered directly into his ear. It sent his heart into overdrive, a puff of air against his lobe making him shiver. The graze of her teeth against his neck stopped his breathing completely.

He hesitated.

She deserved grandeur. She deserved beauty. A room overflowing with flowers, the finest foods the galaxy has to offer, the softest, plushest duvet. Maybe a warm bath drawn in a tub big enough to fit six, adorned with flower petals and the finest perfumes. Glistening chandeliers against a golden-hued ceiling that reflected the descending sunlight, high up in a distant suite. The highest thread-count sheets on a mattress far too large for just the two of them.

She deserved a kriffing  _ bed _ .

“I don’t care,” she responded fiercely, fingernails scraping against his scalp in a way that had his knees going weak. “I don’t care about any of that. It’s just you.”

_ Fuck. _

__ Ben groaned.

He wanted to  _ devour _ her.

Claiming her mouth for his own once more, hands with minds of their own trailed down her body, tracing the contours and dips of her figure as her own hands raked against his torso. Her hands fisted in the fabric of his tunic, rucking the shirt up as nimble fingers searched frantically for the bare skin hidden beneath the layers of his outerwear.

A grunt of frustration when seeking fingers found naught, and Ben couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face. He let go of her, despite her whine of protest, to pull the outer tunic over his head.

Rey huffed, eyeing the culprit that kept her from her prize - a tight undershirt that fit his torso like a second skin, tucked into the trousers he wore.

“Ridiculous,” she complained half-heartedly, tugging lightly on the undershirt to dislodge it from the waist of his pants. “What does a ghost need with all these layers?”

Ben didn’t know. He didn’t choose this outfit - this dark gray ensemble. He just… woke up in it, that first day that newfound feet made contact with Mortis.

Oddly, he’d never thought to question it.

And he decided it didn’t matter in the slightest as Rey yanked his undershirt over his head, baring his chest to the incessant breeze of the planet. She stops once his skin is visible, tossing the undertunic carelessly to the side with wide eyes. A sliver of embarrassment worms its way into his chest as she stands there, staring, mouth slightly agape.

Then, she touches his skin much the same way she had before, palms flattening against the expanse of his sternum. Her eyes aren’t wide with fear or disappointment, but with  _ reverence _ , and Ben can’t breathe for an entirely new reason.

Bared to her only once before, this moment held an entirely new meaning. Instead of demanding he put a cowl on, she was very nearly ripping it off to soak up the sight of his unobstructed skin in a way she hadn’t felt comfortable doing before.

She was able to watch the way his flesh gave way beneath the press of her fingers. The indentations like fingerprints tattooed onto his skin, marking his body permanently as hers.

Quite suddenly, he was aware of his disadvantage. 

His next kiss was less than chaste; his open mouth slanting against hers. She responded in kind, the feel of his naked skin making her bold.

It made him bold, as well.

Pushing the straps of her rucksack off her shoulders, Ben’s hands dove immediately beneath the fabric of her shirt. His palms laid over the bare skin of her hips, making her gasp at the heat of him. He pulled her closer, inching the shirt up until it would go no further, the tight belt around her midsection halting his perusal.

She took initiative, clicking the clasp open and allowing it to fall to the ground. Ben wasted no time, pulling the tunic and dust coverings over her head in one fell swoop.

Standing there, chest heaving, in nothing but a breast wrap and her trousers, Ben traced the outline of her body to commit it to memory. This was a moment he would reflect on for the remainder of his life, no matter how long or short a time that was.

Her cheeks were flushed, the slightest twinge of embarrassment pulsing across the bond. Ben shook his head, stepping closer and settling his hands on her bare hips.

_ Beautiful. _

__ _ Perfect. _

__ _ Sunlight. _

__ Rey huffed a laugh, shaking her head as Ben’s hands skirted up. They traced the stairs of her ribs, still far too prominent for his liking. Too many missed meals over too many years.

He would rectify that, as soon as he was able.

Not now, though.

He kissed her again - he couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop kissing her if he tried - as he outlined her body. Mapping her like a star chart, connecting every piece of her like a constellation. The bracket of stars that lit up his night sky.

The delicate, curious touch of her tongue against his bottom lip had him groaning, every muscle holding him aloft threatening to turn gelatinous. He unconsciously thrust his hips toward her, and she whimpered against him, deepening the kiss, and more suredly tracing his lips.

His tongue broke the barrier of his teeth to meet hers, and Ben had never tasted anything so divine.

A quick flick of the Force had their clothes forming a barrier against the ground, some semblance of the blanket he wished he could lay her across.

She squealed against his mouth as he lifted her effortlessly, hands tucked behind the backs of her thighs before she settled them around his waist. When they part again for breath, the grin that stretches across her face is unbearably soft. Like…

Like her entire existence had culminated into this moment.

Like she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

He lowered them carefully into the grass, laying her atop their discarded garments. She arched her back, reaching behind her in an attempt to wrestle the breast band off, and Ben grabbed her arms, holding them over her head and pressing them into the ground.

Rey stared up at him, eyes wide, as he slowly caressed the length of her arms, making sure they stayed in place.

_ I want to look at you. _

She squirmed slightly, responding to his thought, but stayed put nonetheless. Fingertips trailed along the tender skin beneath her arms and she writhed more, biting her bottom lip as Ben burned this image of her into the very tissue of his mind. Stamping her countenance into his cells, into his very genetic makeup.

As though she wasn’t already there.

His knuckles skimmed down the sides of her chest, outlining the soft swells of her breasts. She took a shuddering breath as Ben’s hands spread across the width of her chest and marveled at how small she seemed beneath the palms of his hands. How his hands spanned her torso almost completely, the thin fabric of her breast band allowing the heat of his skin to seep into hers. He  _ felt _ across the bond how  _ warm  _ he was, watching in fascination as a flush crept up her chest, obstructed partially by his palms and breast band.

It needed to  _ go. _

Suddenly stopping her from stripping herself bare felt like the most foolish thing in the world.

His fingers flexed against the fabric, searching for the seam, and she huffed anxiously, rolling her eyes as she arched her back for him. He traced the underside until he found where it was tucked, then yanked, maybe a little too harshly, watching in awe as the band unraveled.

He’d never thought much about the human body. His own was nuisance enough, always far too tall, too thin as a child, and too broad as an adult. He’d honed it in over the years, making it a conduit under Skywalker’s tutelage and a weapon under Snoke’s. Ben would never claim it was something he’d  _ mastered _ , but it was an afterthought; it needed to eat at times, sleep at others, train or fight or run. Outside of these instances, it simply existed.

But…

_ Rey’s body. _

__ Her chest -  _ heaving, stuttering -  _ was dusted with freckles. Like her body had been a canvas decorated by an artist of the stars. Paler was the line cutting across her chest where the band normally lay, defining the skin allowed to kiss the sun versus the skin hidden away.

Skin she’d allowed no one else before to look upon.

Skin meant only for his eyes.

A soft gasp as his fingertips grazed the small, puckered peaks he’d revealed to Mortis’ breeze. They were -  _ so pink _ \- soft to the touch, the color of guavafruit flesh, and they  _ hardened _ beneath his touch as though reaching,  _ begging _ for the stimulation he’d barely begun to lavish her with.

“Ben,” she murmured, and he didn’t even remember leaning down, but he was kissing her again. Caressing her tongue with his own. Feeling the soft, pliable shape of her lips as they morph and blend with his. One hand still grazing her breast, the other stroked the line of her jaw as she pressed into him, pulling him closer, the skin of his chest brushing against hers.

He doesn’t remember who reached for whose clothes first. Who took the liberty of removing, discarding, yanking fabric away, but all at once they are skin against skin. She is warm, so  _ warm _ , smooth, and pliant beneath him. His Light, his own personal star; he reveled in the slide of her bare skin against his, the stroke of her thigh against his hip, the cradle of her hips that he slid into perfectly. Like she was made for him. Like they were forged of the same stars, two halves finally,  _ finally  _ coming together.

It was  _ electrifying. _

She brushed against him  _ just so _ and his hips jerked toward hers automatically,  _ hard _ against  _ soft, _ rubbing against her  _ right there. _ She  _ moaned _ against his cheek, a sound that seared into his brain like a brand. A sound he wanted to have her make  _ again  _ and _ again.  _ Her hands, formerly settled against his waist, now trailed up, tracing the dips and contours of his abdomen, his chest.

_ “Please,” _ she groaned into his ear, and  _ fuck _ it took all of his willpower not to give in to her commands. To not combine stone and satin in that way he instinctively knows they were designed to lock together.

But.

There was a process to this. Though not personally familiar with it, Ben had heard enough locker room talk amongst Stormtroopers and his former Knights to know that a certain amount of preparation was necessary.

Jaw clenched, Ben shut his eyes tightly against memories as they threatened to surface. This moment was too pure, too perfect to be soiled with his past. Any measure of advice he could skim from raunchy stories was irrelevant. His  _ past  _ was…

Not irrelevant. It was ignominious. He’d done too many horrific, unforgivable things. Caused too much despair and heartache and hopelessness. Regardless of whatever influence he’d been under, Ben _knew_ what he was doing when he made those decisions. When he wrought havoc on the galaxy and ended all those countless lives.

It was impossible to reconcile his past with his present. He pressed his forehead into Rey’s shoulder, unable to face her as she panted and gasped beneath him, even as his hips thrust against hers again, sliding the length of him against the wet warmth of her. She mewled into his ear, and the arousal coloring his face was overtaken by shame.

_ I love you. _

__ _ I know, cyar’ika. _

How could he ever endeavor to deserve such love? How could she choose to absolve him of every misdeed, every misstep he’d taken that led him further from her? How could she allow him every part of her -  _ this part  _ of her, after the atrocities she’d borne witness to at his hand?

_ You’re a monster. _

Remnants of the past rose unbidden, and Ben pursed his lips as her fingernails dragged along his scalp. His hand enveloped her breast, pinching and rolling the stiff peak of her nipple, unable to stop touching her even as he spiraled. Truly a monster, to take such advantage, that he would  _ coerce  _ her into such a situation as--

“Ben.”

When he looked to her again, glassy, half-mast eyes were watching him with a furrowed brow. He slid his thumb along the bone of her cheek, half-expecting his touch to leave an ink-blotch stain there. A perpetual stain against her unblemished skin. Like his fingertips could carry the sin of his mistakes and transfer them directly to her.

She shook her head, cupping her hand in his and pressing it more directly to her cheek, turning her face to kiss his palm.

“I’m here.” A soft reminder, the reel of a fishing line meant to yank him back to shore. “Be with me,” she whispered, her lips dragging against the skin of his hand. “Nowhere else. Out there, or in your head. Just me.”

With a deep breath, Ben expelled the thoughts that threatened to overtake him, running his knuckles along the line of her cheek and studying the forest-green hazel of her eyes. They closed in contentment as she wet her bottom lip, and Ben chased her tongue back into her mouth, getting lost in her once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy.  
> NOT DEAD!
> 
> Physically, anyway. Emotionally... still on the table ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I know, it's been a while. Life is hard, and being an adult is even harder.
> 
> B U T  
> Guess who got a beta?
> 
> It was me. I got a beta.
> 
> I have the absolutely wonderful [Lindsiloowho](https://twitter.com/donegan_who) proof-reading all of my chapters and doing an absolutely FABULOUS job keeping me in line. Follow her on Twitter! She's been a gods-sent miracle in my life the past few months and I adore her.
> 
> ANYWAY  
> Let me know what you guys think! Next chapter is going to get a lot more... interesting ;)
> 
> Also Ben thinks too much.
> 
> I'll see you guys as soon as I can!!


	21. To Connect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> E Y YO  
> Get ready to   
> S I N

Sensation.

Color.

_ Light. _

Every passing moment offered another modicum of self-assurance. A breathy sigh, a soft whine, the dragging of blunt nails against his shoulders. Her body moved and shivered against his, her breath coming in soft pants against his neck, his chest. Sloppy, open-mouthed kisses on every inch of his skin accessible to her.

The warm  _ slickness _ as he slid his fingers through her folds. The way her lips parted, the unintentional  _ oh _ of surprise as he made contact with the swollen nub at the top of her slit. How she keened, gasping as he circled it with purpose.

The softness of her pleas drove him nearly to insanity. They could emerge from this to find that the galaxy had torn itself asunder in their absence, and Ben would have no regrets. Not if she kept panting his name like that, her hands and arms pulling him impossibly closer until there was nothing between them but atoms. And he  _ still _ felt he wasn’t close enough.

_ Tight _ , so unbelievably tight and wet around his fingers - first one, and then two when she begged. One, two, three pumps and she gasped, back arching as she fluttered around him, her body trying to pull him in  _ even deeper _ . Her pleasure careened carelessly across the bond, and Ben had to take huge, gulping breaths against her neck to keep himself from following her.

He continued dragging his hands along her sensitive flesh until she pushed him away, shaking her head. Her fingertips grazed along the length of him - an invitation, a demand - and Ben had to arch his hips away, knowing the moment she  _ touched _ him, this would be over. It absolutely could not end, not now; not for a hundred lifetimes.

She made a soft noise of displeasure, and Ben chuckled against her skin, grazing his nose along her cheek before capturing her lips with his.  _ This _ he knew he could do correctly. She sighed into his mouth as her tongue danced with his. It was choreography, how well they blended and moved together. An echo of what he knew their bodies would do, once he reined in his demand for release.

He hitched her leg higher, replacing his hands with his hips, and she canted up in anticipation. Brushing her hair back from where it had fallen in her face, Ben met her eyes, her pupils blown wide as she blinked up at him.

“Are you sure?” he found himself asking, even though he could  _ feel _ her desire as it volleyed between them, amplified by his own. She blinked, brow furrowing, but something in his expression had her biting back what he assumed was a sarcastic retort.

“Yes,” she breathed, meeting his gaze with the same fierce determination with which she met every moment of her life. “I want you, Ben.  _ You. _ Every piece.”

Pressing his forehead to hers, Ben closed his eyes, breathing this moment in and absorbing it. It collected beneath his flesh, sifting through his bloodstream and sinking beneath his bones. It became one with his marrow, assimilating as a part of him. 

He gripped himself at the base, sliding his length through her folds, covering himself with her arousal. She keened and writhed, arching so her breasts pressed against his chest when the head notched against her entrance.

His world narrowed into a single point. Every breath she took echoed in his ears. Every press of her lips against his, her skin against his turning his body into a livewire. Heat in his belly coiled hotter and brighter, setting his blood aflame, every touch becoming a spark that would burn him alive from the inside out.

Almost unbearably slowly, he slid in. Centimeter by centimeter, pausing every time her breath hitched to certify her comfort. Her body parted to welcome him, walls pulsing and fluttering with every new inch he introduced. He shook with the effort to not thrust, to allow her time to accommodate his size and every press of her lips to his heated skin felt like a confirmation, a silent  _ thank you _ for staying in control.

_ Hot. _

_ Wet. _

_ So, so tight. _

She was an ocean, and he was  _ submerged _ .

She winced, and Ben stopped completely, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from moving. She sighed, adjusting her hips just so, and Ben just--

_ Slid. _

Hips coming flush with hers, they both exhaled simultaneously. It felt like - like  _ home _ , like  _ belonging _ . Everything around them faded away until the entire galaxy was sharpened, honed, and focused between them, their connected bodies, connected  _ minds _ .

_ Nothing _ had ever felt so right. He didn’t-- he  _ couldn’t have known _ , never could have  _ anticipated _ the absolution of being within her both mentally and physically. He would tear down the entire galaxy with his bare hands to keep this moment. Would bloody his knuckles to the bone breaking apart planets if it meant he could cling to this stretch of time for the remainder of his existence.

His body pulsed.

A twinge of pain, not his own, and Ben pulled back from where he’d buried his face in Rey’s neck. Her face was screwed up, eyes shut tightly as she adjusted. He kissed her cheek, the bridge of her nose, the small wrinkle between her brows, apologizing softly. She shook her head, taking a deep breath, and her expression smoothed out. The sensation of a barrier within her shifted, dropping away and allowing him a scant few centimeters he hadn’t realized he’d not taken yet, and Ben had to dig his nails into his palms to keep from crying out.

Her eyes were alight when they looked at him again, the swirling hazel a mosaic of forest and moss and  _ light _ . Like looking through sun-speckled treetops during a summer sunset.

_ Ethereal. _

She nodded once, and Ben began to move.

Impossible. He pulled out, not too far, the concept of leaving the vice-grip warmth of her body impossible, and thrust back in. And it was… 

The greatest minds had cultivated thousands of sonnets about  _ this _ . Wars were forged and fought, populations decimated. Artists illustrated the most renowned, incredible pieces that were celebrated and revered across entire systems.

Ben had never understood. There was no drive within him to live this moment, to relegate himself to awkward fumblings that would leave either party dissatisfied. That so many could be warped into believing this was the epitome of a life lived would often make him scoff. How could anyone care about  _ this _ when there was an entire galaxy of interconnected energy begging to be studied?

His doubt was transformed into certainty all at once.

It wasn’t enough.

Creations over thousands of years reflecting this moment. However many millions of books, plays, cinema produced. Wars waged, civilizations - entire  _ planets _ destroyed and rebuilt; impassioned speakers, attempted conquests, thousands upon thousands of full and broken hearts, full and broken  _ lives _ documented.

_ It wasn’t enough. _

Not for this.

Rey, moaning into his ear as he set a slow, absolutely sublime tempo. Rey, kissing everywhere she could reach - his lips, his jaw, his neck, finding a spot at the juncture of his neck and shoulder that made him stutter and devoting her attention there. Rey, squeezing her thighs around his hips when he hit something so deep within her it pulled a gasp from her lips.

The Jedi were exemplary at detaching themselves from emotional connection in order to maintain devotion to the Light. Though Luke wasn’t quite as strict with his teachings, and admitted openly to having developed an attachment to his twin sister and brother-in-law, Ben found the prospect comprehensible. Besides his parents, his attachments were few and far between, especially as he aged.

He had thought shedding attachments would help encapsulate the Light. Then, later, with Snoke in his head and Darkness in his heart, he’d worked harder to dedicate himself to the singularity of the Force. His studies became an obsessive devotion. Every waking moment was spent harboring, investigating, epitomizing the Force. He honed and ameliorated his own skill until it became the centralized point of his life.

He’d thought himself strong.

But he’d never felt so powerful as he did with Rey groaning in his ear. Hitching her legs up higher around his ribs, he focused on finding that spot within her again and again, her gasps turning to moans, louder and louder as he drove her further and further toward release. Every exhale a moan, a gasp of his name.

A shift in the wind. The subtle, constant breeze of Mortis changing direction. It fell, then picked up, rushing over and around, creating a vortex of which the two Force users became the focal point. It sang through the underbrush in a soft, hushed melody, a choir of wonderment discerning a stellar collision in an unmoving meadow. The Force reacted around them, shifting subtly, small pebbles rising from their home on the ground and circling the dyad as they came together.

Neither Ben nor Rey even noticed the change.

“ _ More, _ ” she choked, clutching his shoulders as though they were the only anchor keeping her tethered to the ground. “Please,  _ please, more,  _ Ben.”

He clung with bruised fingertips to the last vestiges of his sanity. Her gasped pleading nearly threw him over the edge, ending the moment far too soon, before she’d had a chance to find her release. Biting the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, Ben locked the knee he’d been holding in the crook of his elbow, allowing a slight change in angle as his thumb sought that same slick-coated nub from before.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream, back arching as he circled the swollen button in time with his thrusts. Ben’s hand made its way into her hair of its own accord, the loose strands like silk between his fingers. Fisting his hand in the tresses, he swallowed her next moan so it belonged only to him, stealing her breath and her lips.

_ Mine _ .

Possession shot through his veins like lightning. Like the plasma beam of a lightsaber, it ignited through his blood, this desire to  _ have _ , to  _ keep _ , to  _ own completely. _ He quickened his pace, hips pistoning faster and faster. Rey broke away from his kiss with a gasp, crying out into the empty meadow around them, and he felt her tightening impossibly around his length.

“Look at me,” he demanded. Her eyes, glassy with desire -  _ I did that, I did that to her - _ locked onto his own. The freckles dotting her cheeks and chest were much more prominent when colored with a flush of desire, and Ben wanted to trace every single one with his lips and his fingers and his cock, wanted to mark and claim her in every possible sense of the word. “Keep your eyes on me.”

_ I want you to know who your pleasure belongs to. _

Tightening his grip in her hair, Ben watched her intently as a bead of sweat rolled down her temple, resisting the urge to lick it away.

He  _ needed _ to watch her fall apart. Needed his eyes tracing the contours of her face, memorizing her microexpressions, needed to watch her mouth as it opened with another deep, unabashed moan. All the while, her eyes remained on his, studying him with the same rapt attention he’d devoted to her, as though  _ he _ was the diaphanous existence that merited unreserved analysis.

The fire within his body heightened, flames burning brighter and hotter, reaching toward the sky with white flame fingertips. Her body, already wrapped so impossibly tightly around his, cinched further, her muscles throbbing and fluttering. The fire connected their bodies as the tension burned him alive.

Her dam broke first.

Her nails practically ripped into his skin with how tightly she held on,  _ pulsing _ and  _ shuddering _ as her voice echoed and reverberated in Ben’s ears and mind. It was  _ beautiful, _ how she fell apart completely with a high-pitched wail, careening over the edge of oblivion. Her eyes screwed shut, but he couldn’t fault her for that, not with the way her groaning filled the space around and between them. Her body gripped him so tightly that he could barely move, her inner walls thrumming with the echo of his heart. It was the way her legs twitched, spasming involuntarily against his torso as he thrusted through her aftershocks that finally had him lodging himself as deeply as he could go as he jumped off the precipice.

He came with a shout, biting into the meat of her shoulder as his entire being threatened to implode. The hand he’d been using to stimulate her now held her hip in a bruising grip, keeping her locked firmly to him as he released over and over again deep within her body. Something proud and irreconcilably primal whispered in his chest, gleaming at the idea of tying her permanently to him as he coated her insides with his spend,  _ his DNA _ . A piece of himself she’d never be able to wash away.

As though she didn’t already have every piece of him.

Distantly, the sound of debris falling with muted thuds in the grass around them could be heard, but Ben registered nothing except her panting against his skin.

It took all of his strength not to collapse on top of her. Rey shook as his lips trailed lazily from the imprints of his teeth on her shoulder up her neck, until they encountered the salted wetness tracking down her cheeks.

Ben pulled back, concern cracking through the moment like a whip as he wiped away the stray tears spilling from her eyes. 

He’d hurt her?

He’d  _ hurt _ her.

Oh fuck, he’d been so  _ rough _ , so  _ callous _ in his indulgence of her body. The inherent need he’d felt to possess her completely, in a way he swore to himself he’d never entertain, never again, had caused her  _ pain _ . He pulled away, trying to give her space, to untangle himself, but she just clung to him, her brow furrowing.

“Where are you--?” Her voice was still breathless, hoarse, and the maker help him, he  _ twitched _ from where he’d not quite extricated himself.

“I--” Ben pursed his lips, unable to meet her gaze, not quite able to see the discomfort in her expression where he’d swear nothing but rapture had existed before. Instead, ever so gently, he brushed the tears from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb.

_ I hurt you. _

Rey said nothing for a moment, and then her hands were cupping his cheeks, drawing his face toward her own so he had nowhere else to look but her eyes.

She was  _ smiling. _ It struck him again, just how radiant she was. How the light within her shone like she was full of stars.

“Happy tears, Ben,” she assured him, caressing his cheek in a way that he’d never fully be able to convince himself he deserved. Relief suffused every part of his being. “I’m not hurt. I just… I had no idea it could feel like this.” The sincerity and  _ love _ in her tone nearly brought tears to his own eyes.

Ben kissed her as he slowly slid from her warmth, both of them groaning at the loss. He felt the trickle of their mutual spend as it painted her inner thighs, resisting the urge to look in favor of kissing away the tears that still stained her cheeks.

She chuckled, adjusting her hips and sighing. “I am a bit sore, though. But,” she continued before he could interject his apologies, “it’s a pleasant soreness. A reminder, I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” he said anyway, moving so he was lying beside her. She followed immediately, draping her body across his with her head pillowed against his chest, as though the mere thought of distance was inconceivable. It was almost painful, how easily and perfectly she fit in his arms. The contours of her body aligning against his as though the two of them were meant to be seamless.

How much time they’d wasted, fighting the truth of what they were.

Contented to lay there, basking in the feeling of her naked skin against his, Ben allowed his hand to drift lazily along the knobs of her spine, stroking a nonsensical pattern as she bled tranquility into the bubble they’d created for themselves. Her lips pressed against his pectoral as she nuzzled against his chest, and Ben’s heart swelled impossibly fuller.

He would build entire worlds for her. Shape new planets to her exact specifications if it meant she’d spend her nights beside him in their shared bed. The power was there, within the same fingertips that glided along the smooth expanse of her skin. Fingertips he’s realizing will not only destroy, the way they’d done for so long, but also  _ create.  _ Create a life, a  _ home _ for her where she’d never experienced such a thing before.

_ I will give you anything you may ever desire. _

“That’s a short list,” she responded with a laugh, rising up on her hands to gaze down at him. “And you’ve already given it to me.” Her own fingers danced along his skin, skimming lower and lower, a destination clear in her mind. As if she had faith he’d had the chance to recover already.

He could only stare at her, watch the way the planet’s light danced in her warm hazel eyes, the way her freckles shifted atop her skin as she settled above him.

_ I love you. _

She blinked at him once, twice, before her eyes were filling, her lips parting in a soft gasp.

“Rey?” Ben felt his brow furrow in concern, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. He moved to sit up, but she wrapped her arms around his shoulders instead, burying her face in his neck as she straddled his waist.

“You… I mean, I knew, of course, you didn’t have to, but you’ve never…”

_ Never said it _ .  _ Never told her what she meant to you. _

Ben sighed deeply, halting the self-deprecating thoughts before they could manifest, because  _ how _ could he neglect such crucial information? Instead, he wrapped her up in a crushing embrace, breathing in the sex-coated scent of her skin.

“I love you,” he whispered against her hair, pressing his lips against her temple. “I love you.” He kissed the delicate bone of her cheek, closing his eyes against the newly-saturated salty wetness. “I love you.”

Time couldn’t stand still. Not now, not with so much of the puzzle yet unsolved. Not with the way the unseen clock of fate ticked down every second they spent in an embrace they simply didn’t have the luxury of stealing, but stole anyway.

None of it mattered. Rey was in his arms, filling his heart with more emotion than he ever knew he could possess. And perhaps time couldn’t stand still, but it could wait.

It could wait.

_ I love you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' up with another update.  
> And it's all SIN.  
> Like, hella emotional sin. Ben Solo can't even turn his brain off during sex. But sin, nonetheless.  
> Anyway my beta told me she cried during editing so I guess I did something right.  
> You guys should follow her on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/donegan_who) because she's amazing.  
> AND  
> I'm also trying my hand at this whole [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/ebongawk) thing. I don't really have any content yet but you can come follow me if you wanna see pictures of my cats and life updates? 
> 
> Love you all! See you next time!!!!  
> <3


	22. Inhale

He’d not opened the rucksack yet.

It was  _ heavy _ , heavier than he expected it to be when he’d lugged it through the desert chasing after Rose. Finn is fairly certain it bruised his back, thumping against his spine as he trudged through the Tatooine sands, seeking either comfort for himself or to comfort Rose; he couldn’t be sure which.

Rose was still pretty shaken up, curled up in one of the spare bunks, though Finn knew she wasn’t sleeping. She’d wiped her tears away, shaken her head when he tried to touch her, and told him that she needed time. He’d wanted to protest, but who was he to demand conversation when he had no idea what she’d just experienced?

Poe had found them, still idling outside of the Lars homestead about an hour after the epidemic. He’d greeted BB-8 with all of the enthusiasm of a parent seeing their child after spending months at boarding school, but his demeanor changed as soon as he spied Finn, sitting in the ship’s lounge with the rucksack at his feet.

“Hey buddy,” he greeted, sitting bodily down beside Finn. He looked around surreptitiously. “Where’d Rose run off to? Supplies?”

“Nah,” Finn responded, shrugging his shoulders. “She’s up in the crew quarters.” Poe nodded, like this was expected information.

“Rey?” His voice had dropped, whispering secrets just between the two of them. Finn ran tired hands over his face, pressing the heels into his eyes. He threw his hands up into the air in exasperation.

“Gone, I guess,” he nearly shouted. “Off on some adventure we  _ apparently _ weren’t equipped to help her out with.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his tone, even after his conversation with Rose.

“Did she say when she’ll be back?”

“I don’t even know  _ if _ she’s coming back.” Finn rubbed his temples, elbows against his knees. “All she said was that she was going to find someone named  _ Ben _ , but she’s never mentioned him to anyone except Rose, who doesn’t actually know who the guy is.”

Poe stiffened, and Finn watched out of the corner of his eye as Poe’s fists clenched against his thighs. Finn sat up slowly, watching as Poe worked his jaw, his eyes alight with disbelief. “Did you say  _ Ben _ ?”

Part of Finn wondered if maybe he should say he misspoke, but the word was past his lips before he made a decision. “Yeah?”

“As in…” Poe swallowed, his fingers flexing like they wanted to reach for something, anything that might hold him in place, instead of floating off into a confused oblivion. “As in Ben  _ Solo _ ?”

Finn blinked. “She didn’t give a last name. She didn’t actually even say his name. Rose had to fill in some of the blanks.” The surname clicked, and Finn felt his jaw drop. “Wait.  _ Solo _ ? Like… Han Solo?”  _ Han and Leia?  _ Leia had never spoken of a son.

Poe scrubbed his hands over his face, sighing deeply. “I didn’t even know if he was still alive. He disappeared when Skywalker’s temple burned. I just figured he’d died in the attack - Leia never really talked about him after that.”

“Leia never…”

“She didn’t talk about him,” Poe reiterated. “He was a few years younger than me, so we were forced to play together as kids. I don’t remember much about him, just that he was pretty quiet and way too serious for a kid.” Poe shrugged, sighing, and leaned back against the bench where they sat. “Han and Leia shipped him off to Jedi school with Skywalker when I was fifteen or sixteen, and that was that.”

Finn worked his lips, trying to stop the cacophony of questions that wanted to spill over.

“How would Rey have known him?” he ended up asking anyway. Then he shook his head, holding a hand up before Poe could speak. “Dumb question. I know you wouldn’t know.”

Poe didn’t say anything for a long moment, his eyes on the ceiling, and the same questions in Finn’s mind were running across Poe’s face in vivid fashion. How easily their thoughts fell onto the same track. Finn was struck by just how alike they tended to be.

“I think,” Poe began, his jaw clenching as he took a deep breath through his nostrils. “I think there was a lot of stuff that Rey and…” He exhaled loudly. “That Rey  _ and _ Leia kept from us.”

“Leia I could’ve figured,” Finn sighed, rubbing his temples again, trying to stave off a headache as it threatened to blossom behind his eyes. “But Rey? I really thought she told me everything.”

_ But Rose told me that wasn’t the case _ , he didn’t say out loud.  _ Rose knew more than me. Rose knew about  _ Ben.

_ I’ve gone to find my misunderstood king _ , Rey had said in the holo.  _ Ben, _ the misunderstood king.  _ Ben _ , a guy Rey apparently knew well enough to run off on some perilous journey to  _ find _ him, but didn’t trust her friends enough to join her.  _ Ben _ , a person so ingrained in Rey’s life that Rose said she’d screamed for him when she’d been attacked by that unseen force.

_ Ben Solo. _

Finn gritted his teeth. Something dark and possessive threatened to overtake his heart, and Finn breathed through it. He  _ couldn’t _ be jealous that his best friend had a life outside of him, it wasn’t fair to her.

And maybe distantly, he’d always known that Rey was destined for things beyond him. Things he couldn’t conceive of, things beyond his personal realm of possibility. Rey, who had been thrust into his life in such a way that still felt impossible. Rey, who had taught him once and for all that there was more to life outside of his indoctrinated Stormtrooper training. Rey, who had looked at him as he’d spilled his secrets and lies with nothing but an honest sort of devotion he’d never seen on the face of another living being.

Rey, who had strength and power beyond Finn’s comprehension. Who had stayed beside him patiently as he navigated his slow tutelage with the Force. Who had directed and guided him through his learning and then reminded him to practice when they weren’t on the same planet.

Rey, whom he may never see again.

“She’ll check in,” Poe said after an extended silence, making Finn jump. “Rey, I mean. Even if she… She’ll check in. She’d never let us question whether she was alive or dead.”

“Not dead,” Finn said automatically. Poe raised an eyebrow. “I would’ve felt it if she died.”

“Right,” Poe sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Your freaky Force stuff.”

Finn laughed despite himself. His fingers itched toward the rucksack still at his feet, but he refrained from opening it - whatever was inside, he wanted to keep it private. Something just between him and Rey.

Poe, however, seemed to detect that Finn wanted to be alone. Not for the first time, Finn wondered if perhaps Poe had his own Force sensitivity, or at least some supernatural level of intuition with how well-attuned he seemed to be in human emotions.

“I’m going to go check on Rose,” Poe said, rising to his feet. Finn just nodded as Poe brushed past him, BB-8 following dutifully behind.

Once his footsteps had receded, Finn let out a long, slow sigh. He reached into his pocket, hesitating a moment before pulling the piece of parchment from where he’d initially hidden it out of a modicum of fear.

_ Parchment _ . No one used paper anymore. Not with the accessibility of datapads. But Rey had found a small stash of it, along with real ink pens, aboard the  _ Falcon _ sometime after Exegol and hadn’t even questioned her drawing to it. Even though Finn and the rest of them had.

His name was printed in slightly-sloping basic letters. Her handwriting had improved exponentially with practice, until the swooping letters were not quite natural, but still beautiful in their imperfections. He’d asked her once, where she got the idea to attempt calligraphy. Surprise overtook her features, then melted into a small, exponentially  _ sad _ smile he’d neverbeen able to decipher.

A note was written within the folded parchment he’d been too afraid to read initially. With a slow, long breath, Finn opened it.

_ Finn -  _

_ I believe you will get far better use from these than I ever did. _

_ I was a terrible student, though Luke and Leia never could quite admit it. _

_ You’ve had so little time to learn, yet you’ve caught on far more quickly than I could have  _

_ ever hoped. Definitely superior to what I may have ever accomplished on my own. _

_ I never told you, but I had help when I was learning the Force. _

_ I don’t think you’ll need as much assistance as I did. _

_ Take care, my friend, _

_ Rey _

Finn blinked, then dug into the rucksack with a newfound disbelief. He spilled the contents onto the floor, standing over what he knew would be within the pack but couldn’t comprehend.

To know, to  _ accept _ , would mean to understand. And Finn, despite the evidence staring him directly in the face, couldn’t accept this. Couldn’t  _ understand _ what was so clearly in front of him. Because it meant…

It meant Rey knew she wouldn’t be coming back.

It meant Rey, for all she was, went on this journey to locate someone she’d lost with the expectation that himself, Rose, Poe, Chewie, Jannah, Maz, Lando, Kaydel, and everyone else she’d come to care for would have to finish the remainder of their lives without her light. Without her strength and courage to assist them on their own missions. Because whatever Rey had wanted to build, it took second place to finding and being with  _ Ben _ .

_ Ben _ , who for some reason didn’t fit into Rey’s current life.  _ Ben, _ a man that Rey was willing to sacrifice  _ everything _ for, including her found family.

Finn crouched next to the rucksack contents, wiping stray tears from his eyes that could be sadness but could also be angerr; he was too numb to differentiate.

With slow, careful movements, he loaded the rucksack back up, cinching it shut and setting it off to one side. He couldn’t deal with them right now, not with how tumultuous his emotions were.

Because he wanted to annihilate that rucksack, but he knew he’d be far angrier with himself if he destroyed the Jedi texts than he could ever be at Rey.

* * *

Rey’s hips undulated in deep strokes, perched above Ben with her legs splayed across his hips. He’d allowed her to set the pace this time, taking deep, gasping breaths with every roll of her hips. While starting out sitting up above him, she’d been unable to hold herself aloft, collapsing against his chest when he met her thrusts with one of his own. She’d meant to kiss him, but the next pump of his hips had her panting her desire against his mouth, breathing in his groans as he swallowed hers.

His reservations snapped when a particularly deep thrust made her body clench around him, grabbing her hips and pumping up into her with abandon. His strokes hit a spot deeper within her than she could comprehend, and they fell apart together, shouting their mutual release into the empty meadow as he filled her to the brim and she fluttered around him.

He pulled away only after he’d softened within her, both of them grunting at the loss of connection, and he pulled her into his arms with their legs tangled to the point that she couldn’t tell them apart.

Growing up in the Jakku desert, there wasn’t place for contentment. Every waking moment was spent beneath a scorching, unforgiving sun, training herself through trial and error on how to collect the best pieces of ships destroyed years before her birth. Long, arduous days spent roasting as she struggled to find her place on a planet that didn’t care about her existence. Longer, lonelier nights curled up in a dilapidated AT-AT walker, staring at a wall full of etched marks and wondering when the ache in her chest might be filled with a family.

With  _ home _ .

What a wonder that she might have found that in the most unlikely of places. With a man who looked at her with reverence rather than disgust when she cut him open with a lightsaber. With a man who challenged her ideals every step of the way, forcing her to face truths she’d buried. Forcing her to face her fears because she knew that he’d be beside her.

A man who, for all of his own faults, gave her his utmost devotion even after he’d faded from her realm and into another. Who supported her through the means available to him when he couldn’t come to her physically.

A man who  _ loved her. _

She grinned as she thought of his confession again. A sentiment she  _ knew _ , of course she knew, with how it was written all over his face whenever he looked upon her, and yet still couldn’t help the emotion that built within her heart when he finally said it.

“I love you, too,” she whispered against the skin of his chest where she’d pressed her face. His fingertips danced along the ridges of her spine. They traced invisible, indelible patterns along her skin, tattoos that would exist unseen beneath the barrier of her flesh. A memento she would hold with her for the rest of her days. Looking at him from beneath her lashes, Rey offered a small smile. “I just realized I never said it back.”

The way he looked at her. Like she was the most glorious thing to ever grace his presence. Like he couldn’t believe she was in his arms - that he’d been  _ inside her body _ just moments before. And then he  _ grinned _ that same smile he’d given her like a gift on Exegol. A secret shared only between them.

“I know, cyar’ika,” he responded softly, and  _ oh _ how that name made her stomach erupt with butterflies. Rey grinned right back at him, until he captured her lips with his, stealing a kiss and another moment they simply didn’t have.

Ben kissed her for an eternity, for a second, for not nearly long enough before he pulled away with a reluctant sigh. He’d warned her, when her fingertips began creeping south along the expanse of his skin, that they didn’t have time for a second (or third) round, but his protestations had been falsified. Words of a man who knew the ugly truth of their borrowed time but actively ignored it all the same.

They pulled away from one another at the same time, reaching for various articles of clothing. Dressing themselves and each other depending on what piece they found. Rey, blushing, tucked her dust guards and his undertunic into her pack, folding until the evidence of their spend was hidden and buried. Ben laughed at her, cupping her jaw and kissing the side of her head where her hair was a tangled, matted mess.

Without preamble, he began slowly untangling the nest her hair had become following their trysts. His fingers released her buns from the prison that was their ties, combing through the mess in short, simple strokes. It fell around her shoulders in waves, touching the tops of her breasts. Longer than she’d ever worn it.

“Don’t cut it,” Ben said softly when she commented on such, and Rey hid a grin in her shoulder. His fingers expertly weaved her hair, tugging on strands and crossing them this way and that.

_ Braiding _ , the word came to her after a moment. She remembered, just after the Crait, when Leia invited Rey into the captain’s quarters aboard the  _ Falcon. _ She’d taken her own hair down as they talked, brushing through what seemed like miles of hair and then threading it into a new design.

_ “Braiding held a lot of significance on Alderaan, my home planet,”  _ Leia had said when Rey watched her with unmistakable awe.  _ “Each design held meaning. Especially amongst dignitaries.” _ She’d nearly scoffed the last bit, making Rey smile for the first time since they’d boarded that old ship. Leia finished the hairstyle without taking her eyes off Rey, knowing the knotted bun at the back of her head would be perfect after so many years of practice.

_ “What does this one mean?” _ Rey couldn’t help but ask. The General looked at herself in the mirror, seeming to realize only then exactly what she’d done to her own hair as her eyes downcast and a heartbreaking smile graced her lips.

_ “Mourning.” _

Ben finished her hair with a few tight pulls. Cautiously, Rey reached up, patting the sides of her head to make sense of the style he’d given her. It wrapped around her head in loose braids, resting like a crown on her skull. She smiled as Ben’s fingers graced the skin of her neck.

“What does it mean?” she asked softly, afraid to disturb the bubble he’d created while fixing her hair. His fingers stopped their perusal, flinching as though he hadn’t expected her to understand the intricacy of Alderaanian braids. After a moment, the plush softness of his lips graced the back of her neck, and Rey had to put a hand on his hip to keep from physically melting right then and there.

_ Beloved, _ he responded across the bond as Rey leaned against his chest. Never quite leaving her skin, his lips skimmed her nape and pressed again to the other side of her neck.  _ Cherished. _

Another word drifted along the edge of his thoughts, but he tucked it away, out of her reach. As though not quite ready to admit fully what her hairstyle meant to him. She chose not to question him, knowing his admission would come with time.

She’d learned that about him, in their time together.

_ Together _ . What a wonderful word.

“Well,” she said after stealing another moment in his arms, “any ideas on how to get out of here?”

Ben hummed against her shoulder, his thoughts flipping by more quickly than she could follow. The break in the Force she’d followed to find this place in the weeks before, falling behind walls on Tatooine, was a scar that had healed itself. Otherwise Ben would have felt it, as he had before. And she knew that the mirrors she’d followed for miles between their worlds were one-way. They’d need to find an entrance point, like the cave beneath Ahch-To, to get back.

His mind seemed to continuously come back to a structure - a temple, he informed her silently. Something constantly out of his reach after he’d made his way to Mortis, once his suspension in nothing ended. He’d searched, but it moved in a way no building should have been able.

“So we just have to find a way to keep it stationary?” she asked as Ben slowly released her, stepping back. Rey turned to face him, watching in awe as his eyes danced between hers. “Keep it in one place?”

“I don’t know if it particularly listens to our will,” he responded, and though there was humor in his eyes, he didn’t smile. Still contemplating their options, with twelve of their forty-eight hour window having closed so far. He looked up, eyes on the lavender sky above, various muted streaks of white the only thing obstructing the purple hue.

Beautiful, she thought. Dangerous, he responded. The sky would grow darker as their hours ticked away, turning first a light purple then fading into a deep blue. Like a slow sunset on a lush, green planet he didn’t name.

“We’ll look for the temple,” he said after another minute of thinking. “If there are any answers for leaving this place without a ship, it’s going to be there. Rey,” he said as she turned toward the underbrush he’d come through, the idea of  _ finally _ exploring this planet almost too exciting to bear. She looked to him again, gauging the seriousness in his expression. “This place doesn’t abide by the rules of our universe. It moves and sways in impossible ways. Stay with me.”

With a smile, Rey reached out, holding her hand in the space between them. “Always.”

The barest hint of a smile, and Ben responded in kind, taking her hand in his.

_ Always _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy.
> 
> So I uh. I moved. Like 1680 miles at the beginning of August, which is why my update has been so long in the making. I haven't had any time to do anything except exist, and even then it's just barely. That's also why this chapter is somewhat short, but I'm going to try and make up for it next chapter.  
> I appreciate everyone's patience so, so much while I work through all this personal stuff. I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful I am to all of you. Everyone who keeps coming back and reading my work is just amazing, I can't even begin to describe how wonderful you all are.
> 
> As always, my absolute BOSS of a Beta, the wonderful [Lindsiloowho](https://twitter.com/donegan_who/) is to thank for the coherency of this chapter. Follow her on Twitter!! (Or you can follow [me](https://twitter.com/ebongawk/) but like I only ever post nonsense).
> 
> Thank you guys again! I'm working on the next chapter now so I'm hoping to have it up by next week.  
> Love you guys! So, so much!


	23. Monument

Mortis was  _ beautiful. _

Rey didn’t know so many ecosystems could cohabitate on one planet. The forest they’d harbored bordered on a different sort of forest, with spiny, barren white trees made entirely of energy. Rey brushed her fingertips against one as they passed, marveling at how it vibrated against her skin with a residual energy that felt as though it was pulled straight from the planet’s core. The landscape here was darker, somehow, as well. Walking from day into night with no passing of time. In the distance, mountains with no base floated against the horizon, and they walked along some type of red river that seemed to have no beginning and no end.

All the while, her hand stayed firmly grasped within Ben’s. They moved quickly, ducking through the Force forests and walking through endless plains, giving the floating mountains a wide berth, but after a while all her focus was centralized on her palm against Ben’s. How his hand dwarfed hers, swallowing it almost completely. A safety she’d never known before embraced her almost as fully as his arms did, and she blushed as though his body hadn’t been inside of hers only a short while ago.

She wondered, distantly, if someone was watching them from the outside, how completely his body would envelope hers. Were their hands a reflection of the way he covered her? Would he shield her completely, the expanse of his back and her legs around his waist the only things visible?

Ben squeezed her hand, looking at her with a raised brow, and Rey had to remind herself that her emotions were on full display unless she consciously chose to hide them. Her blush deepened, and the slight chuckle Ben gave her in return was magnificent.

In response, Rey lifted their clasped hands to her mouth and pressed a soft kiss to the skin of his knuckles. The  _ warmth _ that lit up his face, the  _ softness _ in his eyes when he looked at her was all the confirmation she needed that she’d done the right thing. That being here was the right thing.

Wrapped up in the feeling of togetherness, Rey wasn’t sure if they walked for minutes or hours, but Ben was all at once pulling her along. Looking out over the distance, Rey could see the tip of what appeared to be a stone structure, though it didn’t look much like a temple to her. It was overwhelmingly large, she realized as they grew closer. A pyramid-shape with some type of light emitting from the very tip, though it was almost floating, no source seen by her eyes.

“I don’t remember it looking like this,” Ben admitted as they grew closer. He showed her the temple he’d been chasing, however many months ago it was that he’d first stepped foot here. Significantly smaller, with a rounded, dome-shaped roof and white marble walls. This new temple was dark - some type of obsidian, or onyx, perhaps.

It was oddly beautiful against the planet’s backdrop. The structure stuck up from the planet’s surface like a proud statue. A thing  _ meant _ to be known. Rey felt drawn to it, as she once had on Ahch-To to an underground cave. Though this was cleaner, somehow. The black vines that encased the well on Ahch-To had encased her chest like a vice, drawing her into a darkness she’d never before known. This draw felt more pure, in a way. Lighter.

_ It looks like Mustafar, _ Ben thought, showing her another image of a castle he’d explored on a molten planet in the Outer Rim. Rey cringed as the memory clarified in his mind, the emotions of his past welling as the castle came into focus.

“I don’t like that one,” Rey responded aloud, motioning toward his head. Ben immediately shoved the image away. Suppressing a shiver, Rey chewed on her lip. “Feels… colder.”

“It was built by Vader,” Ben explained as they traversed the landscape, and Rey couldn’t be sure, but it almost seemed that the temple was closer than it should be. Moving toward them as they moved toward it.

“Why?” She knew, though they’d never discussed it, how immersed Ben had become in Vader’s legacy. How hard he fought to immortalize himself as a true successor to a man that Ben resembled only by blood. Not that she  _ wanted _ to give thought to the man who had such a hand in bringing the galaxy to its knees.

Ben, in a similar manner, seemed unwilling to relive his past. He hesitated, and Rey squeezed his hand in reassurance. “You don’t--”

“He wanted to bring back his wife,” Ben interrupted. Their trek slowed to a stop, and Ben couldn’t bring himself to look at her for a moment. “I don’t even think the Emperor knew why Vader built it. Especially on that planet, where he’d faced his greatest defeat.”

Her other hand enclosed around his as she faced him completely. This time, when she squeezed, he squeezed back, if only slightly.

“He enlisted the help of this Sith artifact he’d stolen from Sidious’ vault,” Ben said with a shrug. “Built that castle to the exact specifications of the Force and the ‘Architect’, the only name he ever gave that artifact.”

“How do you know all this?”

Ben finally met her eyes, blinking slowly before taking a deep breath. “He recorded the progress in holocrons that I found, buried in the castle.”

“Oh,” Rey responded. She pursed her lips. “I take it he wasn’t able to bring his wife back?”

“No,” Ben admitted, closing his eyes. Rey stepped closer to him, tilting her head back, and Ben brought his forehead to rest against hers, eyes still screwed shut. She reveled in the connection, the  _ rightness _ of his skin against hers. His anxiety bled away with his next exhale. “The last message simply said, ‘I failed.’ He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t want to know more.”

They stayed like that a few moments more, then decided silently together to move on.

“He must have loved her very much,” Rey commented as they came upon a ledge, and yes, the temple was  _ definitely _ closer than it made sense for how slowly they were walking. Energy flickered and buzzed warmly around it, a silent greeting. The hand still holding Ben’s prickled with a pins-and-needles sensation, and the way his fingers tensed against hers let her know the sensation wasn’t hers alone.

“He did,” Ben agreed as they jumped down the ledge, using the Force simultaneously to lessen the impact of their fall. “Once upon a time, I thought him foolish. To allow a connection to run so deeply that he would defy destiny itself to bring her back.”

“And what do you believe now?” Rey couldn’t help but ask. Ben pulled again to a stop, turning her to face him and tilting her head so she had nowhere else to look but his eyes. They glimmered, the color of warm Corellian whiskey reflecting the light of the planet. Her breath caught with how absurdly  _ lucky _ she was to have him.

_ I would move galaxies for you, _ he answered her inquiry silently, eyes darting between hers anxiously. Like he  _ needed _ her to believe these words; this declaration. Rey grinned, the sincerity in his mind’s eye nearly overwhelmed her. A pause, and then he leaned down to kiss her, more softly than warranted with such a confession. Rey’s eyes closed of their own volition, and she nearly collapsed with contentment.

He kissed her still with that shadow of disbelief. That amazement at her physical presence. As though he was still wrapping his head around her existence, let alone the reality of her physicality before him.

“Moving galaxies is great and all,” she said softly when he finally pulled away. “But remember that I crossed realms for you. I think I may have you beat.”

He laughed. He laughed, and  _ oh _ the way it made her heart beat faster within the cage of her ribs. The rumble that bubbled from deep within his chest, bursting from his lips in a beautiful melody. The almost-surprised expression he wore, as though the laughter itself was pulled from a depth he wasn’t even aware he possessed.

Rey pulled his lips back to hers, desperate to  _ taste _ that laughter. It unfurled across her lips like a blooming flower, soft and sweet against her mouth. As though she might be the sun for which his garden blossomed. The nectar of hrelan bees could never compare to the essence of his kiss.

He broke the kiss when he felt her tongue tracing the seam of his lips.

“Cyar’ika,” he chuckled against her skin.

“Please,” she responded, even as she felt Ben pulling away.

_ Thirty-six hours, _ he reminded her. Rey wanted to whine, a youngling in the face of the man she adores so much, but she blamed his absence for her actions. That he was gone so long -  _ missing, _ she told herself, because facing the reality of what happened was too much to bear, even now with him real and breathing in her arms - made her more reliant on his presence than she could admit aloud.

The reluctance between them was palpable when they turned to begin their trek toward the temple.

Only to find that it had come to meet them.

* * *

Standing at the base of a steep stone staircase, Ben took a step backward, his arm nudging Rey back with him. She ducked beneath the barrier he’d tried to throw up with his forearm, marveling at the grandeur of the temple that had essentially appeared out of thin air.

It was still an hour’s hike away before they’d gotten distracted for maybe five minutes.

_ What the fuck? _

Rey seemed completely undisturbed, reaching back behind her from where she’d moved around him and taking his hand in hers. “Ben, it’s incredible!” she gushed, pulling him along as she stepped up the first stone step.

“Wait, Rey.” But she was already trudging up the staircase, yanking him up along with her. Ben sighed, resigned, and jogged after her to keep them on even ground.

He’d done enough exploration with Luke back in the day to know to be cautious of a temple, Jedi or otherwise.

Though the power of this place told him that it wasn’t Jedi. It wasn’t qualified under any known hierarchy that he could place. As they climbed closer to the top, the Force that flowed through these lost hallways called to him in tongues he didn’t speak - languages too old to exist in the modern galaxy. Yet he understood them all the same.

Great, terrifyingly powerful beings once ruled this place. He could nearly hear their footsteps as they walked with purpose through this structure. They spoke in hushed tones, echoes of a past forgotten with time.

Tragedy had befallen this place, as well. The balance was still strong, but tilted somehow. As though this temple’s axis was separate from that of the rest of the planet. They ascended the stairs with every step feeling further off-kilter, the ground beneath them fading from view, though the steps themselves were maybe forty high at most.

Even Rey seemed affected by the atmosphere all at once. She curled in on herself as the staircase gave out to a landing, inching closer to him as they moved with stilted steps toward the temple’s base.

“It feels so strange here,” she commented, her fingers gripping his just past the point of comfort. “Weirdly warm and cold all at once. And  _ electric. _ ”

“Like standing in the eye of a storm,” Ben responded. Rey only nods. “This is a Force convergence.”

“The texts called it a ‘nexus’,” Rey recalled, staring up at the arched, impossibly tall spires stretching toward the sky. Two huge, connected spikes bursting from the stone and earth of the planet. Like the ancient Jedi temples Luke had journeyed to, lifetimes ago.

Like Mustafar.

Ben had only been once to the decrepit old castle, looking for answers. The natives, angry as they were with Vader for killing them by the hundreds and stealing their mountains for such a gaudy thing, had taken to dismantling it with their bare hands, brick by brick. The disrepair on the outside matched the interior, though Ben had been the first to walk those halls in thirty years. The infrastructure, without the life and Force it was connected to, had begun crumbling under its own weight as soon as Anakin passed from one realm and into the next.

He found the holocrons, fought with them for hours before they finally opened at his building frustration. The vestiges of Anakin that remained in Vader’s soul had diminished greatly over the years. Something about how…  _ dark _ he’d been toward the end had unnerved even Ben, who’d destroyed the last ten or so holocrons in Mustafar’s endlessly flowing rivers of lava without even attempting to open them.

He’d buried that particular instance of defiance away from Snoke, knowing the man would seize the holocrons for himself, had he known of them. Ben had made sure they  _ all _ burned, twenty-eight holocrons captured in the flames of molten planet core. The Force trapped within them had  _ screamed _ , giving Ben a vision of another agonized shout, an anger felt deeper than comprehensible.

_ I hate you! I hate you! _

_ I never spoke to Ben Kenobi about it, _ Luke had admitted once, in the quiet of their ship, with Lor San Tekka snoozing in the back as they returned him home to Hosnia Prime.  _ But I did manage to retrieve a few of the Jedi lessons that had been lost after the fall of the Order. Anakin and Ben trained classes of younglings together in proper lightsaber form. They… they cared a great deal for each other. Brothers, perhaps not by blood but in every other countable way. _

“Ben?” Rey asked, and he shook himself from his reverie, looking down at her. Confusion and worry furrowed her brow, and Ben took a slow breath to reorient himself.

“Inconsequential,” he said softly, smoothing the small wrinkle between her eyebrows with his thumb. “Just lost in memories for a moment.”

“I see.” They approached the entrance of the temple, every step feeling heavier than the last. How had they felt so welcome to this place prior to climbing the steps, and yet like trespassers in a mausoleum now? “Will you tell me about them?”

The idea immediately made Ben revolt, and he had to school his features before they could twist with disgust. He’d spent so many years tamping down those memories - the happy, exciting ones he’d scarcely admit had even happened. When he viewed Snoke only as a voice of guidance in his mind and couldn’t detect the sinister undertones that became so prominently apparent later. When he and Luke would look for those artifacts, those holocrons, to begin building Luke’s own temple.

“Someday,” he promised instead, and the grin he received in turn is worth every moment that had led to this.

The door to the entrance is huge and thin, an arched top so high it nearly blended in with the steeples and stone above. Rey, ever fearless, walks right up and presses the small knob just above her head as Ben marvels at the sheer splendor of this forgotten tomb.

Nothing happened.

Blinking, Rey pressed the knob again, then a third time, receiving the same outcome despite her growing frustration. As she huffed, Ben turned, eyes dancing over the ancient runes carved into the exterior walls. Three tall, thin beings, decorated divinely stand proud just next to the entrance. The oldest of the three is in the center, palm facing out and open as though pressing against his stone prison. The female to his right has her hand raised straight up above her head, and the male to his left has his hand down, palm flat.

Something connects in the back of his mind, and Ben stepped up beside Rey, capturing her hand in his before she could press the knob for the eighteenth time. Palms flat, he pressed their hands to the runes just beneath the knob and took a slow breath, closing his eyes.

The Force of this place flowed in deep, inextricable colors, hues so rich and impossible they melded and jumbled irreconcilably together. Creating only Light, only Dark. Only Gray.

He felt the way Rey followed his actions, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, holding it in her lungs as he did. They exhale simultaneously, and with their breath, the Force flowed from the palms of their hands and into the entrance. It spread through the stone like a web, connecting the various ducts and veins like a river of energy. A distant groan echoed from deep within the chamber, and he pulled Rey back a step as the doorway shivered. Sediment spilled in great clouds as the doorway separated, splitting down the middle as it retracted on both sides.

No one had been here in decades. Perhaps longer. Dust billowed as a breeze blew from the interior of the structure, carrying with it the scent of must. Rey’s eyes narrowed, moving to cover her mouth with her shoulder and being confused for a moment before she sighed. Ben had to hide a smirk in his arm with the realization she’d be utilizing her dust guards now had they not been… caught in the crossfire of earlier activities.

Cold seeped from the temple, wrapping around their ankles and threatening to drag them beneath the surface. An invitation made of ice and Dark. In the same moment, warmth from the planet pressed against their backs, urging them forward.

Like a summons of sun and Light.

“Ben?” Rey whispered to him, not to ask him anything but with a question of confirmation in her tone. Like she needed the reassurance that he was still there, still with her. He squeezed her hand in response, working his jaw. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t accept the possibility of seeing fear in her eyes and knowing that he was the cause. That she was only here for  _ him, _ and that trepidation was a response to something entirely avoidable.

He simply nodded, swallowing once, and led them into the cavernous mouth of the temple.

* * *

It was like being swallowed whole.

The doorway of the temple led immediately to an impossibly intricate staircase. It disappeared out of their line of sight, either side shrouded in an unforgiving darkness. They took slow, measured steps, both careful of their grasp on the other. Ben was steadying her, most surely, but she was terrified to be the reason that they both fell. She hadn’t brought enough bacta with her to heal a dozen staircases worth of scrapes and bruises.

The idea of taking out her lightsaber and igniting it as a flashlight was almost too tempting, but there were a couple of issues that made themselves home at the forefront of her mind. One, the way they were illuminated so directly to be able to see a few feet in front and behind them led her to believe the lighting in this place was powered by the same that lit the planet outside. Two, she had a wiggling fear in the back of her mind that whatever the darkness was hiding, she’d do better to keep from illuminating it.  
The rational part of her mind told her that her fears were unfounded, those of a child with parents gone too soon, navigating the darkness of a moonless night on Jakku with no idea what lurked beyond the shadows. But the fear wasn’t dispelled, so her saber was kept tucked safely against her waist.

It occurred to her, at such an oddly inopportune time, that she had yet to show Ben her new lightsaber. Her thoughts strayed to how he might react - if he knew that she’d buried the twin lightsabers in the Tatooine desert, so near their paternal grandmother’s grave. If she’d told him, during all those stolen moments she hadn’t quite remembered fully, how she’d traveled alone to Lothal after the fall of the First Order and spent days looking for the single cave where kyber crystals grew. How she’d meditated for what felt like ages before the crystal accepted her, despite it having been the only thing that sang to her on that planet.

How she’d marveled, when its bright yellow effervescence filled her workstation in Ajan Kloss once it was constructed.

Would he marvel, as well?

It only grew colder as they descended, until the staircase finally gave out to another landing. The moment their feet touched the final step, the room was suddenly illuminated with light from no source. Like a thousand candles suddenly lit all at once. The staircase behind them was still dark, the unnatural light hardly touching it, though the hallway before them was open, enough light reflecting off the walls.

The walls themselves were as ornately decorated as the temple outside. Symbols she couldn’t decipher lined the edges of hieroglyphics that felt ancient. Older than time itself. All of this was interwoven between huge pictures carved straight into the stone, depicting three beings in various states. In one, an impossibly tall and beautiful woman was bent over what appeared to be a garden, her palm pressed against green plants in an otherwise dead meadow. Like she was coaxing it back to life. In another, a man with dark lines set in his face held a bushel of black thorns above his head, triumph in his stance.

The third picture was softer, somehow. It held all the same power as the other two, but without the necessary display of power. An older man, taller still than the two other tall beings, stood quietly beneath one of the spindly tree from the Force forests outside. He was serene, relaxed in a way but still with an aura that the world might bend to his will, should he wish it. Rey stared at him for a long moment as Ben observed other depictions along the walls, waiting for the moment when the thought behind the man’s expression would come to her.

It did not, and some small part of Rey was dissatisfied.

Unconsciously, she reached out, mesmerized by the image of this bearded man who stood so forlornly in a field by himself. Her other hand, still clutched in Ben’s, strained as she stepped closer, until her fingertips could make contact with the cold stone.

“Rey, wait--”

The images, and the words, still in that language she didn’t understand, lit up all at once from the inside. Rey jerked her hand back in surprise, but the illumination rushed down the hall, connecting the pieces of artwork like a river of light.

Ben pulled them back, away from her blunder, and his steps stuttered when he ran into the wall behind him, closer than it had been before she’d distracted them. His palm flattened against it to steady himself, and the adjacent wall she hadn’t realized was still unlit rectified itself. The river of his own light spread just the way hers had, rushing down in a flood until it disappeared beyond their vision.

Rey blinked up at Ben, exhaling a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. His eyes were wide when he met her gaze, shoulders shaking with his next inhale.

Above them, something groaned deeply. It rumbled through the structure, a stomach growling within the bowels of the temple. Sediment spilled onto them from above, and a great crashing spread from the direction of the stairs, growing closer by the second. Ben’s eyes narrowed, glancing behind her toward the staircase, before widening in realization.

“Run!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy.
> 
> As always, I want to give a special shout out to my beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful, amazing beta [LINDSAY](https://twitter.com/donegan_who) (follow her on Twitter she's wonderful).
> 
> If you wanna chat, you can also follow [me](https://twitter.com/ebongawk) (I put out story threads pretty often if you're interested in reading more a n g s t)
> 
> Anyway so uh
> 
> *throws soft reylo and runs*


	24. Reflection Pool

“You doing okay in here, kid?” Poe asked, leaning against the doorway of the crew quarters. He was the last person Rose wanted to talk to, but Finn hadn’t said anything to her in what felt like days, except, “Rey’s not coming back,” and she has to appreciate the sentiment that  _ someone _ is willing to offer her company.

“Fine,” she shrugged. The episode at the Lars homestead had mostly worn off, though the memory was still strong in her mind. It played in front of her eyes at highly inopportune moments, distracting her to the point of needing to rest, even when she felt that the last thing she needed right then was to be idle.

Something had  _ happened _ in there, something beyond Rey’s anguish harboring within her chest for a moment. She just hadn’t yet to figured out  _ what. _

So yet again she was in the crew quarters instead of fixing something or creating something or running contingency with the rest of the Resistance. Never having pictured herself a diplomat, it was surprising how easily the work came to her. She’d still not quite learned how to talk to a room full of people, having spent so long buried behind machinery, but her mind coaxed solutions much more easily than she ever could have anticipated. Finn and Poe, the co-Generals and saviors of the galaxy, had more frequently insisted on dragging her to treaty discussions and trade route organizations.

A mediator, they called her. A future Senator, Poe had promised once, over one-too-many glasses of Corellian whiskey they’d found aboard the  _ Falcon. _

_ If only Paige could see her now, _ she’d think, waiting for the stab of grief that would typically accompany the thought. Though this time, it doesn’t crush her as it once did.  _ That’s odd, _ she thinks, but she shrugs it away.

“Finn all distant and moody with you, too?” Poe asked, leaning against the bunk frame. Rose had been losing herself in a holonovel, refusing to allow her thoughts to drift toward Finn or Rey or any of the diplomacy missions they’d plotted over the course of the month. Poe, as blind as ever, came barrelling in and carelessly threw himself right back into the crux of her fears.

Rose nodded in response, and Poe sighed.

“He can’t get over the idea that Rey might have had secrets,” Poe continued, and Rose held up a hand.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer not to have this conversation right now.” Not again. Not after trying over and over to explain to Finn that Rey was a complicated person, that she’d lost something greater than anyone else could ever hope to understand. That her very soul had ached and throbbed like a lost limb for months and months, and she’d smiled and put on a brave face through it all.

Not when, distantly, Rose heard murmurings across that residual connection in her body that whispered defeat and longing and an unimaginable sadness. Rose, too, would do anything to rid herself of such a heavy weight, and she’d had it so briefly.

It was difficult to imagine experiencing something so fully and for so long.

“I did talk to him yesterday,” Poe continued, pretending he was changing the subject but still discussing the topic he had stuck in his mind. Rose had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. She kept quiet, waiting for him to continue. “He said Rey was looking for someone named Ben?”

Rose grit her teeth, waiting for Poe to discuss Rey’s betrayal.

“Did she mean Ben Solo?”

_ Wait, what? _

“I-I--”

“Finn wasn’t sure, he said neither of you had a surname, but I don’t know another Ben. And Rey knows way less people than I do.” Poe shrugged, and Rose blinked at him.

“I’m not sure,” she stuttered, staring at Poe in disbelief.

_ Did Finn not tell him? _

Poe only nodded, sitting down on the bunk across. He looked as though he wanted to say more, but the beeping of his comm interrupted whatever thought he’d been intent on discussing.

_ Thankfully _ , Rose thought, the sarcasm in her mind biting even as her confusion mounted.

“General Dameron,” he answered the secure link in his small handheld device.

“Poe, my boy!” Maz greeted jubilantly from the other end. Her voice cracked, almost past the point of a clear connection. Wherever Maz was in the galaxy, she was far away.

“Maz? Is something going on?” Poe glanced at Rose as she leaned closer, trying to catch Maz’s broken communication.

“Everything’s fine, everything’s fine. We do need a ride, though. We’re stranded on a small surface colony on Kamino.”

“What are they doing that far into the Outer Rim?” Rose asked, brow drawn together.

“What do you mean ‘stranded’?” Poe asked instead. “Don’t you have the  _ Falcon? _ ”

In the background, they heard a grumbling voice, followed by the broken staccato of Chewbacca’s growling. Poe and Rose exchanged a look as Maz chastised her company.

“ _ Falcon’s _ gone,” she said simply. “We’ll be at the cantina. Coordinates to follow. See you soon, kiddos!”

The comm ended, and Rose’s perplexion was mirrored in Poe’s face. They blinked, and then, together, said:

“What does she  _ mean _ the  _ Falcon’s  _ gone!?”

* * *

The temple rumbled from the shadows, a beast in the night stalking its prey. Hand gripping Rey’s, Ben  _ ran _ as fast as they could as the ceiling spit debris and the walls closed in.

Inexplicably following that river of light as it stretched down the hallway, the walls they’d touched hesitantly coming together. Gently, almost. The way two lovers might inhale the presence of one another before sealing a promise of togetherness within a kiss.

It might have been something which one would look upon in awe, that a place so old could react readily after so many years untouched. Something to warrant study. Perhaps if they weren’t in danger of being crushed to death between impossibly heavy slabs of stone, Ben might marvel another moment.

He practically yanked Rey, pulling her through the hallway so she was running in front of him, then pushing her faster still. The opening at the end of the hallway illuminated as they closed in, and Ben nearly shoved Rey the last of the distance before hurling himself through the gap.

The walls seemed to close behind them as soon as his body hit the ground, his muted grunts drowned out by the echo of rock hitting rock. Bracing himself on his hands, he looked back just as the doorway behind them sealed completely, the two walls having come together and melting into one solid piece of stone.

“What in the Maker?” Rey asked breathlessly behind him, a hand on her chest as she also watched the impossibility of the two separate walls becoming one.

“Guess there’s no going back now,” Ben responded, standing and helping Rey to her feet. She stood close to him, the length of her arm pressed against his side, and Ben was once more reminded that she was  _ real _ and  _ here _ , and he’d never grow tired of the thought.

Together, they looked around the chamber in which they now found themselves. Illuminated by no recognizable source, the echoing cavern was impossibly large, lit so every corner was visible. The temperature suggested how deep underground they were, though every brush of chilled air brought an unexplained warmth with it.

More carvings decorated the hollow, as well. Those three celestials in various states of ability, sometimes together but usually separate.

Rey, too, looked around in wonder at the new pictures adorning the enclosure. Her fingers twitched, as though they once more wanted to touch, but her hesitation at a repeat of their hallway disaster stopped her.

She walked up to a singular depiction with her fingers laced in his, craning her neck back to look at the three. The older man stood in the middle, arms outstretched, with the woman to his right and the man to his left. The woman’s hands were held above her head, hands stretching toward a sky of rolling black clouds. The man with the tattooed face stood with his arms down, palms level with the ground, standing in an impossibly green meadow adorned with wildflowers.

“What are they?” Rey asked, her hand squeezing his. Ben blinked down at her. “These… are they people?”

“In some aspects,” Ben responded carefully. “They were regarded as gods in their time. Three celestial beings that represented the Force.” Rey wasn’t looking at him, but he could tell she was clinging to his every word, absorbing what little information he’d garnered from his years with Luke. “The Son, the man with the facial markings, represented the Dark.” He pointed at each of the Ones as he explained their roles in the carvings. “The Daughter was Light, and the Father was the balance. He kept the other two in check.”

“They lived here?” she asked carefully as they moved to the next painting, one of the Daughter walking through a spindly Force forest. Her hand was brushing a branch of energy, and it was sprouting leaves in response.

“For many millennia,” Ben affirmed. “It was said that the Son and the Daughter were constantly at odds, and the Father kept the peace between them.”

“What happened to them?”

Ben took a slow breath. “My grandfather, Anakin, along with Ahsoka Tano and his… his Master, Ben Kenobi, were transported here at some point during Ahsoka’s training.” Ben led her to the next depiction, the Daughter, on her own in a large pool of water that glowed like sunlight. “I only know what Sk-- what  _ Luke _ told me, but from what I was able to gather, the Son killed Kenobi. Or maybe Ahsoka. And the Daughter, who was nearing death after an attack by the Son, sacrificed herself to bring them back.”

The next image showed the Son, hands cupped beneath a stream of liquid as black as tar. “Then the Father killed himself, and the Son lost his life in turn.”

Rey pursed her lips. “They were awfully easy to kill, for gods.”

“They were revered as gods,” Ben corrected her quietly as they studied an image of the Father, standing in a swirling pool of gold and black, relaxed and at ease even as the liquid suffused up his bare ankles, creeping higher. “They themselves never claimed the title, as far as I know.”

“But you said they were celestials,” Rey argued, eyes fixed still on the Father.

“Even celestials are not as infallible as gods,” Ben explained, looking down at her.

Rey opened her mouth, brow furrowing as she chose her next words, when a soft cooing interrupted them. They looked at each other, then turned around simultaneously.

A small white and green creature sat perched on the stone lining of the opposite wall. For a long moment, there wasn’t a sound, a blink between any of them. Just soft breathing from Rey, his own heart beating in his ears, and the wide green eyes of an impossible surveyor.

Rey shifted beside him, bracing her foot as her hand flinched toward her belt - her lightsaber. The creature turned its attention to Rey, cooing again and spreading long, elegant wings.

“Wait,” Ben said, the hand not holding Rey’s coming to rest against her opposite wrist, slowly lowering her offensive arm. Rey didn’t spare him a glance, stepping forward to position herself between him and the potential threat.

“What is that thing?” she hissed. “I thought this place was empty besides you.”

“It’s a convor,” Ben answered her first question, pulling her back behind his body again - admittedly to protect the bird, rather than Rey. “And it was. I was alone.” Outside of his haunt in Ahsoka, there wasn’t even an insect to speak of with whom he shared this planet. And this convor, so different in coloring to the flock he’d seen on Wasskah, or the one Maz had kept for a time as a pet on Takodana. He would have been drawn to the uniqueness of it, the beauty of its pure white feathers, tinted green in the wings and head.

How did it get down here?

It cooed once more, ruffling its own feathers and cocking its head to one side. Something was oddly familiar about this bird, something in the way it seemed to swim in its own Light as it shimmered and moved. It spread its wings, flapping them once, twice, eyes on Ben. It glanced at Rey, then dipped its head as though nodding.

“I think maybe…” Rey said, her eyes narrowed as she focused on the bird. “I think it wants us to follow it?”

The bird blinked again, and Ben realized it had answered Rey’s question before she asked it. The convor ruffled its feathers, then took flight, swooping around the entirety of the domain before twisting itself to fit through a narrow passage Ben hadn’t noticed before.

Hands still clasped, they followed the convor, Ben having to turn sideways to fit through the corridor through which it disappeared. It grew darker as they maneuvered, the light from the temple’s great room not permeating this space. Back and chest nearly flush against the two walls, Ben relied only on the Force to lead them through the passage unscathed.

He could feel Rey as she stretched her senses behind him, the grip of her hand tightening around his as they blindly followed the bird. It hooted from somewhere ahead, voice echoing as it entered a new chamber.

No unnatural light met them as Ben stumbled first into the new chamber. Rey’s fear of the dark echoed with their footsteps, and Ben pulled her close as they moved together, tucking her against his side. His Force was… muddled here. Suppressed, something about the enclosure inhibiting his ability to access his sixth sense. It was disarming, like navigating without an arm to steady his balance. He squinted against the darkness, as though it would be easier to see through pitch, and realized his idiocy the same moment Rey giggled beside him.

It dissolved a small amount of tension as Ben grinned in her general direction.

The bird cooed again, somewhere in front of them, and he felt Rey take a deep breath beside him as they moved toward it. It seemed to somehow grow even darker as they stepped through the chamber, the cold of the underground permeating his layers and sinking into his skin. Every step was a drop in temperature, and Rey, the desert flower that she was, began shivering. Teeth chattering, she curled even closer to him, leeching his body heat as the convor hooted, closer now.

Their next step was taken together, and their feet touched nothing.

A gasp - hers or his, perhaps both - as they fell through space. Ben instinctively pulled Rey closer, wrapping his arms around her as his back hit and fell through ice. Lungs burning, he kicked out, feet meeting the submerged resistance of water. He felt Rey struggle against his chest, and he grabbed her by the forearm, kicking his legs beneath him and dragging them up.

Hauling Rey first, they broke the surface, chests heaving as they gasped for breath. The water sank like ice beneath his skin, trying to freeze his blood as it coursed through his veins.

Lights flickered along the walls as they tread water. Purposefully igniting now that they’d fallen with no chance of getting back up into the temple. Rey clung to him, her arms wrapped around his shoulder as he took a moment to look around the new space. A small outcropping lined one wall, the rest of the room cavernous and empty. Rey kicked inexpertly as he moved them toward the outcropping. Her years in the desert not doing much for her swimming lessons. She reached the wall first, hoisting herself up as Ben looked back at the hole they’d fallen through.

The convor peeked over the edge, Ben barely managing to catch a glimpse of its green eyes before it shook out its feathers and disappeared.

Making sure they’d made it to the bird’s desired destination.

He pulled himself from the frigid water, teeth chattering from the cold as Rey coughed beside him. She slicked her hair back from her face, the buns she’d worn having fallen when they crashed into the water. Heaving a breath, Ben coughed into his elbow, his lungs protesting the water he’d inhaled in their unexpected descent.

“I am not a fan of falling through holes and into pools,” Rey said, her voice hoarse as she coughed again. “It’s happened twice now, so I think I’ve gathered enough evidence to make that decision.”

Despite himself, Ben chuckled, rubbing the water from his eyes.

“Can’t believe that stupid bird led us down here,” she continued, huffing as she wrung out her clothes. The cold encased Ben’s skin, sending needle-like sensations down his arms as he fisted his hands. He felt Rey’s eyes on him. “Ben? Are you okay?”

“C-C-Cold,” he admitted, glancing up at her. How was the temperature still dropping? It felt like he’d been thrown into water and then dropped in Ilum’s ice caves. Rey’s brow furrowed with concern as she knelt beside him. “Y-Y-You’re-re n-n--”

“No, I’m not cold,” she interrupted as he struggled to finish his sentence. She pressed her hands to his forehead, the normal temperature of her hands feeling like fire against his skin. He flinched away as she pushed his hair back off his forehead, standing her full height and looking around, and  _ kriff _ how was it so  _ gods damned cold _ in here?

“R-R-R--”

“Where the fuck did that stupid bird go?” she asked, her anxiety bleeding across the bond as Ben pulled his knees toward his chest. “Hey!” she called into the emptiness, her voice echoing across the gold-laced tile that made up the walls of the cavern. “I thought you were supposed to be our guide!”

His fingers were shaking, turning blue as Rey looked frantically around for -  _ something, _ he wasn’t sure what. He could hardly focus on her. Water dripped from his hair onto his bare neck, icicles stabbing into the surface of his skin.

She dropped to her knees beside him, her fingers dancing along his forehead, down the length of his jaw. She took one of his hands in both of hers, and oh, that felt nice. Her warmth seeped beneath his skin slowly, like falling into a down mattress.

“Can you stand?” she asked as he took a breath through clenched teeth. Nodding before he knew an actual answer, he pressed his legs beneath him, knees threatening to buckle as Rey hefted most of his weight. Hating himself for needing so much assistance, he leaned against her for support as she wrapped an arm around his waist, shuddering.

“You feel like a big ice block,” she hissed, pulling his arm around her shoulder and entwining their fingers. “About as heavy as one, too.” He exhaled through his nose, the closest he could get to laughing at her quips as the cold settled over him, a blanket of snow wrapping around his body and cinching tighter and tighter.

“This is the only outcropping in this room,” Rey thought aloud, looking around the expansive chamber, the only solid ground beneath their feet. “Wherever we have to go next has to be from here.”

Unless it was back in the water, but Ben couldn’t think about that right now, his toes going numb in his boots. But then, the convor wouldn’t have left, were that the case. As much as it had led them through darkness and into cold, Ben couldn’t believe the intentions were malicious.

Rey’s head whipped back and forth frantically, her hand on his waist rubbing up and down, trying to force heat into his veins through friction as the ice settled more heavily on his bones. Fuck, he was so tired. Every time he blinked, opening his eyes again grew more difficult.

She practically hauled him toward the back wall, keeping their fingers entwined and using the back of her hand to press along the tile. His eyes were drawn to a single tile in the middle, discolored compared to the rest of the wall.

“R-R--”

“I see it,” she exclaimed, nearly tripping in her haste to drag him toward the wall. Using her foot, she practically kicked the tile, delight suffusing the bond as her foot sank into the wall with a creak. Ben wanted to breathe a sigh of relief as the wall shuddered and separated, but the cold was making his muscles lock and spasm, his entire body vibrating with the chill.

“Are you fucking--” she practically cried as the arched doorway open further, revealing only a black obsidian wall beyond it. Ben curled into himself at the waist, his body trying to conserve the small amount of heat still pumping through his veins. Rey reared, moving them closer to the wall, as though she could tear it down with her bare hands. Barely able to keep his eyes open until Rey slapped the wall.

Like water rippling after a stone is dropped into a pond, light spread from the contact of her hand, spreading across the wall in waves and lighting up runes otherwise unseen to the naked eye.

Hesitating, she leaned over and tapped it again, watching for a moment as the effect duplicated, the light beneath the stone spreading and rippling.

Ben couldn’t think, couldn’t attempt to help her solve this puzzle, but Rey’s third tap to the wall had her scanning the runes themselves with rapt attention.

“I recognize this,” she said confidently. Grabbing the hand around her shoulder, Rey entwined their fingers, shivering as Ben’s icy skin touched hers. Glancing at him, her lip worried against her teeth, she exhaled slowly. “This is going to work,” she promised him. “It has to.”

She says it like she can’t consider the alternative.

His muscles seized, his next breath more of a gasp, just as Rey pressed their hands to the stone.

The warmth of it sent fiery pinpricks over the entirety of his palm, Rey’s own palm against the back of his hand pumping Force energy through his tissue, muscles and bones and into the wall.

The runes lit up all at once, and the wall before them became almost transparent. Transforming from obsidian into dense fog. Rey yanked him through, submerging them in darkness all over again as they stepped through the absent wall. There was an overwhelming amount of nothing in front of them, standing on the edge of another precipice that didn’t physically exist within the temple - existed only here.

She moved them from the tiled room completely, feet from the edge of a cliff.

The cold left his body in a rush as Rey wrapped her arms around him, leaving him breathless.

“Brace yourself,” she said, not giving him a moment to register before she was tilting them over the side of nothing.

Together, they fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo waddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy.
> 
> Ok so. Ok.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> We're nearing the end, children! Only like... idk, 5 more chapters? Maybe less? I'm guessing, I don't keep track. I should do an outline or something, maybe that would help my writing process.
> 
> As always, a WONDERFUL thank you to my absolutely amazing beta, [Lindsay](https://twitter.com/donegan_who) (follow her on Twitter).
> 
> OR if you'd like to follow [me](https://twitter.com/ebongawk) I post a lot of threads of our favorite space nerds in various situations. You can message me if you have any questions or just want to talk!
> 
> Let me know what you think of the chapter! Something fun is in store for our nerds next chapter!
> 
> See you next time!


	25. Returning Darkness

He’d taken to trying his meditation tactics on the texts.

As though there might be an echo of her intentions that he could gather.

Han Solo’s incredulous voice rang in his ears, an exasperated  _ That’s not how the Force works! _ infiltrating his thoughts as his frustration mounted. Because this didn’t feel like Rey - the Rey he knew wouldn’t just run off on her own without at least a comm message; a destination point transmitted across radio channels where he could meet her in some amount of predetermined time. Rey doesn’t just…  _ leave _ .

He banishes Rose’s  _ Maybe you don’t know her as well as you thought you did _ as it emerges, as well, sighing and centering himself, just like Rey taught him.

He recognized her signature. He should be able to  _ feel  _ her, no matter where she happens to be in the galaxy. But no matter how often he searches, she’s nowhere to be found. Not dead - he’d feel that. But just… not here.

He wonders if his extra sense isn’t as keen as he may have been convinced. Or if maybe he doesn’t recognize her as easily as he once thought. Sitting before him in the sands of Tatooine, of course she had been easy to see. And when he’d meditated later, he hadn’t been  _ looking _ for her, only looking for serenity, for  _ Force _ . The beacon she’d been had burned so brightly behind his eyes - maybe he’d forgotten what it was like to see around her.

“Finn?” Rose knocked on the open door of his quarters. At Poe’s insistence, they’d made their way back to the former New Republic headquarters on Coruscant.

“ _ We’ve done what we can,” _ he’d told them after almost two days sitting on Tatooine, trying to figure out their lives.  _ “It’s time for them to come to us now.” _

They’d been here not even a full day now and already the next week was full of contingency meetings and treaty organizations spanning representatives from twenty-seven systems. The entire galaxy seemed intent to see the former Resistance on an even playing field, to discuss the overwhelming number of things that had been demolished under the short reign of the First Order.

Though Snoke had snaked his way into his own number of shady dealings, slithering under the woodwork of the Republic and sinking the venom of doubt into the ears of corrupt politicians, it was Kylo Ren that had forced the galaxy to submit.

Fear was a powerful motivator.

“Come on in,” Finn responded, sitting at his desk. The texts were tucked away beneath his feet, unseen by prying eyes in the event anyone was able to figure out his desire for the ancient books to lead him to their former owner.

Rose was oddly meek as she sat on the ottoman at the foot of his bed, her knees curled in and her shoulders hunched. She pursed her lips, then sighed deeply.

“So,” she began, pressing her palms together. “Rey went off to find Ben Solo.”

Finn gritted his teeth with a nod. As though he needed the reminder.

She sat for a long moment, then seemed to switch gears. “Do you remember when Rey fell through the wall in that cave?”

“Yeah,” Finn responded, raising an eyebrow. “She was missing for, what, twelve hours?”

“Right. Do you remember what she said when she came back?”

Finn opened his mouth to respond, then paused. The memory was… just there, just on the edge of his consciousness. But it bled away, raindrops sliding through the crevices of his outstretched fingers. Rose watched as his brow furrowed, reaching for that recollection.

“I…”  _ Wait. _ “I feel like I should. Shouldn’t I? Wasn’t it… Wasn’t it important?”  _ What is going on? _

“Hold on to that confusion,” Rose insisted, rising. She approached him cautiously, a mechanic with eyes on a loose livewire. “I kept letting it go, and I couldn’t comprehend for days what was wrong.”

“I don’t know why I’m so confused, though,” Finn argued. It was like a fog was obscuring information. Or maybe more like a screen, held up in front of something almost vital enough to remember, reflecting his own uncertainty back at him. “How is it important?”

Rose wrung her hands, glancing at the floor. “Remember when we were on Tatooine? And I had that… that attack, that echo of Rey’s anguish?”

Finn nodded, and Rose shook her head. A chuckle bubbled its way out of her throat, though there was no humor in the sound.

“It wasn’t… It wasn’t an echo, not really. I just - maybe I just felt that way because I couldn’t  _ understand _ , but it was something different. Or, I don’t know, maybe it  _ was  _ an echo, but an echo and a voice at the same time somehow? Or - or maybe it was--”

“Rose,” Finn interrupted, grabbing her hands. “Slow down. What are you talking about?”

She closed her eyes, taking a slow breath in order to center herself. When she opened them again, there was something exponentially grave in her countenance.

“That… Whatever it was that happened, it wasn’t just some… playback of Rey’s emotions. It… it  _ took _ something from me - from both of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Think about it,” Rose said, her shoulders dropping, but she didn’t let go of his hands. “You’re missing something, right? When Rey came back through that wall, you were  _ so _ angry. Why can’t you remember that?”

“I don’t--”

“And me. I was… I was just thinking about Paige, and there was this tenseness in my chest, like a rubber band that had wrapped so tightly around my heart it was threatening to snap. But I couldn’t remember  _ why _ I felt so heavy.” Lacing their fingers together, she stared at their entwined hands like she couldn’t bear to look at his face. Finn stayed quiet, waiting for her to continue. “And then I remembered Rey, and the way she  _ screamed _ that day in the kitchen, screamed like her heart and mind were being ripped to shreds. And she was reaching for the only person she knew could help her, but he wasn’t there, and she was in so much pain.” Rose’s next breath shuddered in her chest. “And then she came to, and it was like nothing had happened. She was just… just  _ fine _ from one moment to the next.”

She was quiet for a long, tense moment, and Finn cleared his throat. Rose looked as though she wanted to cry, but couldn’t conjure the emotion that would make it possible. He squeezed her fingers, and it took some time before she finally squeezed his back.

“I think Rey was some type of beginning. This… This  _ thing _ , it stemmed from her, but it lurked in that house all the same, waiting for something new to feed on.”

Finn stood slowly, making sure to keep their hands together as he stepped closer to her. She said nothing for a long time.

“Feed on what?” Finn asked quietly.

“On us,” she explained, then sniffed, seeming to think better of her word choice. “On our emotion, anyway. Like… Whatever negative emotion we felt the most strongly standing in that house -  _ that’s _ what it took. But it had to rip up our memories to take them.”

“What are you saying?”

“It took my grief.” Her face contorted, desperation crossing her features because she wanted to cry but she  _ couldn’t. _ “I-I didn’t realize it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my head is all…  _ jumbled. _ Like the memories are  _ there, _ but they’re obscured somehow. I can’t - I don’t remember how Paige died.”

“What--?”

“On a conscious level, I know she died, of course. And I  _ know _ how it crushed me. But it’s like… everything else is missing. The emotion, the ache, the overwhelming  _ loneliness _ that I  _ know _ I felt for so long is just… gone.”

Finn searched her eyes, his brow furrowed.

“What did it take from me? I wasn’t affected like you were that day.”

“I thought about that too. I think it’s because what I had that was taken was so much more all-encompassing. I’d been carrying my grief for two years.” Finn turned that over in his head, perhaps not completely convinced but willing to hear her hypothesis. Because there was  _ something _ there in the back of his mind, worming the doubt through his hippocampus.

“Rose,” Finn insisted. “What did it take from me?”

Rose sighed. “Your anger.”

“What was I angry about?”

Rose paused. Something like regret sifted across her features, and she sighed dejectedly.

“Kylo Ren,” she finally admitted. “It took that anger, that acknowledgement that Ben Solo and Kylo Ren are one and the same, and knotted up your memory in the process.”

It shouldn’t be so shocking, to have something he apparently knew revealed to him all over again. But, as he waited for the anger to suffuse, he realized with a jolt that it was just… gone. It was a startling revelation, and he  _ should _ be mad that Rey would go gallivanting to unknown regions of the galaxy trying to find a man she admitted was dead.

But the anger was lost somewhere. Diminished, shielded from his perception.

“How…?”

“I don’t know much about the Force,” Rose said quietly, her voice dropping, as though the unseen predator might be stalking them now, lightyears away from Tatooine. “But whatever it was that grabbed us and altered our minds - whatever it was that stemmed from Rey… It wasn’t finished.”

A pause, weighted with intent.

“I think… I think it’s getting stronger.

* * *

Ben was more of an awareness in her arms. A corporeal spectre with weight pressed against her own. The air around them was the same temperature as their bodies as they fell, the wind slipping by them so quickly it was like they were floating.

Rey felt the pressure of his hand on the back of her head, tucking her face into his chest. She held her breath, closed her eyes, and relaxed her body the way she was taught years ago while scavenging star destroyers on Jakku. Proper preparation for surviving a fall.

But the harsh landing never came.

Rather, it was as though their momentum slowed exponentially. Two stones rolling down a narrow path, the friction of nothing pulling them to a stop. She felt Ben shift around her, still tucked safely in his arms. She felt as he released her slowly, his hands on her elbows as he drifted, then the slight jolt of his body as he came to a stop. Looking down, she was awed to see him planted on his feet in a sea of black nothing. Still suspended, Ben gently pulled her down, back to his side with his hands wrapped around her forearms.

She was a little miffed that they hadn’t been awarded the same treatment she’d received falling  _ in _ , but she could hardly be upset about it. Not with the way he was staring as she drifted slowly to him, like she was an angel floating down from the heavens. His body was the only visible thing, vital and clear in all the nothing. Like lamplight, illuminated completely from the inside.

Through the reflection in his dark eyes, she looked much the same.

_ Beautiful. _ The word floated across the bond with innate clarity, their voices melding into one as the ideation stemmed from them both. Not consciously thought but  _ felt _ as her feet touched the solid nothing beneath them. She was only vaguely aware of the odd sensation beneath her feet - standing on something solid, but nonexistent all the same. Rather, her attention was devoted entirely to the reverence in his eyes.

Their hands drifted, skin sliding along skin until fingers interlaced. It was another moment of soft awe; though she knew, of course she did, how well their hands fit together. As though they hadn’t just spent the last however many hours rushing through a decrepit temple with hands locked.

Whether she or Ben leaned in first, she couldn’t say. But suddenly their lips collided, the gravitational pull of being  _ together _ irresistible. He kissed her with the same passion with which he approached his training - with precision and power. Overwhelming her senses, a hand laid against her jaw and the other in the dip of her hip.  _ Consuming her _ .

As much as it pained her, she pulled away first. He rested his forehead against hers as they breathed in each other’s essence. Because they weren’t in the clear yet - rather stealing another moment while reality around them was still skewed.

She kissed his cheek before pulling away, craning her neck all the way back to look at the height from which they fell. A flicker of light, higher up than should be possible, was the only thing visible against the otherwise expansive black backdrop.

“Rey,” Ben said beside her. She followed his line of sight to a small pool sitting against the nothing, the odd insubstantiality of their current location making it look like nothing more than a strange reflection against the ground. Something completely flat and perfectly circular. No visible depth.

With a swallow, Rey took a step toward it. Ben followed with a more firm sense of resolution, squeezing her hand in his as they approached the unidimensional puddle.

It sat, reflecting the nothing in a shimmering puddle the size of a dejarik table. A round sheet of glass sitting perfectly among the black. Illusionary, as though stepping onto it could hail the same result as stepping onto solid ground.

Rey blinked, then dropped to her knees beside it, grabbing her rucksack and digging through the contents. Ben knelt beside her, fingertips nearly skimming the water. She felt a pulse of his Force as he attempted to read the water’s signature, using his energy to find out what was on the other side.

She pulled the wayfinder mechanism from her bag as he withdrew his hand with a look of despondence on his face. Across the bond, the other end of the pool was blank - no energy to read whatsoever. Like, if they fell through, they might fall forever.

Rey pressed her energy into the compass, leaning over the mechanism as it whirred to life. The two stones, having sunk back down into the base of the machine after leading her to her destination, rose and twined once more. The stones lit, a beam of light surging from within.

And pointing straight up.

The way they’d come.

“‘Follow the lodes _ to _ Mortis,’” she sighed, disconnecting the wayfinder and putting it away. “I guess they only work in one direction.”

Ben smiled at her, that soft smirk that reminded her so much of his mother her heart clenched. “We have a way back, should we ever need it.”

“I got you out of there,” she responded with a comedic shudder. “If we never go back, I’m okay with that.” His mother’s smile transformed into his father’s lopsided grin, and Rey lost her breath for a moment.  _ Beautiful _ .

“I suppose the next step is more of a leap of faith, then,” he shrugged. “I’ll go first.”

He against the top of the water, watching for a moment as it rippled, waves spreading from the point of his skin outward. It lapped against the sides, not quite as even with the ground as Rey had initially believed, the barest amount of depth between the water and her feet.

Ben stuck his hand more fully within the wet. He sat for a moment, then withdrew, shaking his skin of the moisture.

“It’s cold,” he assessed.

“Good thing our clothes are already damp,” Rey joked, tamping down her nervousness. Ben gave her a reassuring smile before kissing her knuckles and standing his full height. He looked down at her for a long moment, on her knees just beside him, then blinked as a light blush coated his cheeks. Before she could ask anything more, he jumped, feet-first, into the pool.

He’d opened the bond wide as he jumped, allowing her access to the sensations. There was the cold, then an awkward sort of confusion, then a dulled pain in her hip and back.

_ Ben? _

_ Don’t… _ his response came across their connection, and even his internal voice seemed more like a gasp for air.  _ Don’t jump. You’ll… Give me a minute, I’ll pull you through. _

She suppressed a giggle, pursing her lips even if he couldn’t see her. The odd constriction in her lungs - he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him somehow. Their connection shrank, returning to their normal thread, as his hand suddenly burst through the pool just in front of her.

She stared for a long moment.

_ A leap of faith. _

_ I trust you absolutely. _

She took his hand.

The world  _ shifted _ as he pulled her through. There was the splash of cold, water wrapping around her, then a yank of gravity in the wrong direction. Like her body had fallen one way on a ship, and it had twisted mid-air, making her land on the ceiling. Disoriented, she clung to the wet fabric of Ben’s tunic as her heart struggled to slow. She’d been pulled in one direction and then had fallen another, and the vertigo was making her head spin.

He patted her back as she took a deep, slow breath, a chuckle of disbelief stuttering from her chest. What a strange sensation.

“Okay?” Ben asked, brushing her wet hair out of her eyes. The world had yet to stop spinning completely.

“Are we on the ceiling?” she asked, and a startled laugh broke from Ben’s lungs.

“From one perspective,” he acknowledged, helping her stand and wincing when it put strain on his ribs. “Like kinor bats.”

“That was perhaps the strangest thing that’s ever happened,” Rey breathed. “What was it like, jumping through?”

Ben shook his head. “Gravity pulled and pushed on me at the same time.” He didn’t elaborate, but Rey grinned regardless. The way he’d landed - he knew she felt it, and her cheeky expression may have been misconstrued as mocking had she given it to anyone else. Ben just chuckled, his fingertips trailing along the bone of her cheek, outlining the curve of her smile like he could memorize the shape of it by touch alone.

They stood together on coltish legs, him bracing her by the elbows despite his own lack of coordination. It was only then that they thought to take in their surroundings.

She heard Ben’s intake of breath beside her, the astonishment as he absorbed this new plane. Her own breath caught, though she’d been anticipating this destination. The starscape backdrop surrounding miles of darkened doorways, still beautiful despite the exhausted frustration she’d experienced her last journey through.

This time, with Ben by her side she thought the walk might not be nearly as harrowing.

He breathed slowly, watching in muted delight as an unconscious step forward sent a ripple of light from the impact of his foot. Reaching for Rey automatically, he pulled her into his side with his eyes on her feet, eyebrows raising when her own ripples appeared beneath her steps.

“You get used to it,” she promised, startling a chuckle from his chest. “Now. An admittance on my part: I have no clue where to go or how to get back.” The lodestones only led  _ to _ Mortis, so getting back to - where, exactly? Ahch-To again? She was sure the map connected to another point in the galaxy, but her memory was jumbled, her mind too full of the past few days with Ben.

Ben seemed keen on taking initiative from here, looking at the blackened doorways as though they might hold clues for what direction was necessary. Rey glanced down at her feet again, shifting and watching in a new delight as the light rippled. It circled around the puddle they’d entered through, lighting up the pool with a highlight. Rey peeked through, eyes widening.

“Ben.”

He looked with her, eyes drawn to her line of sight and startling as she did at the image before them.

Perhaps they’d been too close, the view invisible from their previous vantage point, but now it was unobstructed. An impossibly large, octahedron-shaped apparatus sat inverted, the bottom portion closest to the pool. A belt of light ran along the middle, brighter than it had any right to be considering how dark everything had been in that realm. As they watched, the pieces shifted, spinning in opposite directions as the gap began to close.

Like a corkscrew, the mechanism came together, silent to them but making the water ripple with the effects. The light dimmed, then winked out completely, and with it the image within the pool.

“Mortis is waning,” Ben said after a stunned moment of silence. “That was the monolith erected to keep the planet hidden, and it’s closing.”

Rey’s brow furrowed. “We had something like a day and a half before we got to the temple - how did the full phase end so quickly?”

Ben didn’t answer, his eyes still on the black pool through which the monolith had made its final appearance. With a gasp, he grabbed Rey by the shoulder, pulling her back a step.

The edges of the pool began creeping inward, unexplainable constellations filling in the space with that same unnatural ground on which they currently stood. If she had blinked, Rey would have missed the way the pool shrank and then closed completely right before their eyes.

Having cut their time so impossibly close without even realizing.

Rey pressed her foot against the new space, verifying the portal had, in fact, closed.

“Cyar’ika,” Ben spoke from beside her, his fingers squeezing hers.

His eyes were trained on a fluttering blue light in the distance, dancing against the stellar backdrop in a shimmying flurry of movement. It circled in gracefully jerky movements, dipping and weaving, a beacon in the darkness. Almost as if it realized it was being watched, it settled against the ground, the outline of two wings quivering as it settled.

“What is that?” Rey asked quietly.

“I think it’s…” They took a step toward it together, and it seemed that the light knew it had their attention, because it flapped those iridescent wings and took flight once more.

Ben began to follow unconsciously, something about the light creature drawing an innate part of his attention. Unable to come up with a logical reason not to, Rey followed suit, jogging to catch up with him until they were in stride once more.

Every beat of its wings had the light creature curving and arcing, fluttering like some kind of irradiated insect as it led them further into the recesses of the vergence scatter.

“Look,” Ben whispered, hushed, as another light blinked into existence beside the first, circling and diving around the first. Rey blinked, and a third appeared as well, the three carving an intricate dance among the stars. After a few seconds, even more joined in until an entire flock of tiny, separate lights flew and wove above their heads. A collection of fluttering creatures leading them home.

The wonder in Rey’s heart was reflected in Ben’s eyes, taking a moment to absorb the splendor. The lights flittered and whirled in a cluster, a hive mind of gloriously delicate entities. They rose and pirouetted in a cyclone of shimmering blue light, something so indescribably beautiful that Rey’s breath caught in her throat.

It seemed like no time at all passed before the light creatures began clustering around a specific doorway, a delicate arch interlaid with spindly vines and clustered thorns. Hands still clasped, they moved with singular determination, both of them ready to be out of the peril that was the world between worlds.

Rey should have known things are never so simple.

The light creatures scattered just as a heavy wind blew through the never ending space, nearly toppling them both. Her hand slipped from Ben’s as they caught themselves, pressing back against the gale and gritting their teeth.

A familiar darkness slithered under her skin, spreading over the expanse of her flesh like oil. Her heart nearly stopped as gray and black clouds spread above, covering the canopy of stars and rolling in like a foreboding storm. Ben held an arm out in front of her, the other shielding his face as the sinister air curled around her ankles, inching up her calves as though threatening to claim her.

A roaring filled her mind, volleying between her ears like a siren. Ben flinched as it grew louder, indicating that  _ he heard it too, she wasn’t alone _ .

“Ben!” she shouted over the screeching, moving to step closer to him. The wind picked up, louder, berating them for having the audacity to want to protect each other.

Suddenly, an impossible appendage, large, much larger than it should be, crashed down from behind the doorway. Swirling black, the solidified viscous  _ thing _ screamed a banshee cry, pulling the storm clouded hurricane with it as it dragged itself out of the darkness.

Rey’s jaw wobbled with unidentifiable emotion, tears slipping down her cheeks and blurring her vision of the creature more than three times larger than it had been before. It stood on six legs, rearing back and letting out a howling cry of despondency. The blue light creatures fluttered away, reflecting their light into the impossibly black topography of the Force beast.

A fear unlike any other filled Rey’s chest, because --

_ It’s back. _

_ It’s back for Ben. _

_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art piece commissioned from the absolutely INCREDIBLE [Mimi](https://twitter.com/Derpy_mommy/) on Twitter, she's one of my absolute favorite Reylo artists and I just love her a whole lot.
> 
> Also.
> 
> Y'all didn't think I would finish out this story without the return of everyone's favorite Force beast, did you.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy the chapter! Lemme know what you think!
> 
> As always, thank you to my amazingly lovely beta, [Lindsay!](https://twitter.com/donegan_who/)
> 
> Come say hi to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ebongawk/), and follow me for heartbreaking reylo threads <3


	26. To The Death

The glimpses he’d caught through Rey’s eyes were nothing compared to the truth of what this being was.

It sat, an imposing mammoth of solidified ink, barely discernible from the surrounding star-pricked encompassment. Every roar and cry of desolation shrieked directly into their ears, a soundwave across the Force filling their minds and leaving the space around them devoid. Leeching every other sound.

Rearing back, it somehow seemed to grow in size as the swirling clouds above it congregated. Nearly as large as a gorog when it reared up on hind legs, screaming soundlessly into the vergence void. The piercing screech reverberated in his ears as Rey flinched beside him. Further proof that this thing was able to attack them directly.

Rey’s lightsaber was in her hand in the next moment, ignited in a golden stream of sunlight. The thing took an offensive stance in the same instant, dropping onto its front legs and raking long, taloned appendages against the ground. It almost seemed to growl, a low rumble of thunder that shook the very bones beneath his flesh.

“I’d thought I was rid of this thing!” she shouted over the howling. Ben said nothing, having hoped beyond hope that she’d been right - that their reconnection and his physically being within her presence would have banished the grief she carried in her heart.

But it became all too clear that this thing - it thrived separately from Rey. Its life had begun in the caverns of Rey’s chest, brooding as she wept and swiping unseen claws through the cage of her ribs, raking across her heart and leaving scars in his absence. But now the two were disconnected, Rey’s heart having started this creature’s life force and harboring it until the beast’s heart could beat on its own. Because she was in such pain.

A dyad was not meant to live without half its soul.

This creature was the product of their separation.

_ A power like life itself. _

This wasn’t the life he had assumed they’d create.

“If I hit it, it’ll disappear,” Rey informed him. “You remember, right?”

“I do,” he responded as the beast stalked closer, then backed away, as though attempting to divide their attention. “But it will just return. We need to defeat it.”

“How?”

“We have to tear it apart.” Tear into its Force and rip it to shreds. Separate whatever pieces of Rey it had sewn haphazardly together and press them back into the Force.

He wasn’t quite sure how.

Hopefully they’d figure it out. Together.

“This’ll be useless, then,” Rey sighed, dropping her lightsaber to her side and extinguishing it. Ben felt affection surge in his heart for this fierce, fiery woman. Affection he could not dwell on at the moment, with this menacing creature pressing closer to their position.

They would have to rely on the Force.

Rey belted her saber. The encroaching beast screamed into the void of their connected minds again, confusion apparent in its stilted cries. Ben tried to remember the way it manifested - the ache in Rey’s lungs as she screamed, the way the claws of the beast ripped her heart apart as it threw itself out. How it warped her mind, making her forget for weeks on end of his waiting for her on Mortis.

Grief had led her to him, but excitement and love had brought her back.

He hadn’t put his thoughts in any conceivable order when the beast had had enough. It charged, six legs propelling it through the galaxy of stars. Ben pulled the Force against himself, still not strong enough, not complete within himself, and pressed it outward. Rey, in the same instant, followed his unspoken directive, sending her own flash of Force toward the beast.

Ben had almost forgotten how much of himself Rey still held. Her own energy was echoed and enhanced by his. The combination of her harboring his power and her own separate energy sent the creature flying onto its back. It roared as it clambored back onto its feet to charge at them again.

_ Stronger, _ Rey thought, and Ben nodded, pulling more Force back and shooting it outward together, a shockwave of energy bounding across their stellar terrain. The beast keened as it was launched backward, crashing through a multitude of doorways and shattering them in shambles of blackened glass.

Igniting a spark of understanding.

The doorways could be broken.

Rey realized, as well, her eyes wide when she glanced at him.

As the creature rolled to its stubbed black feet, Ben pressed against it, using a wall of Force to push it back. Rey did the same, pressing it away from the thorned doorway that would lead them to absolution. It screeched as it stumbled back, pawing with massive claws against the wall of energy. It heaved, and something within it somehow thrusted  _ out _ , a responding wall exploding toward them and nearly breaking the defense they’d erected together.

Rey screamed, feral and incredible, as her energy surged. That gorgeous mixture of the two of them, combining with what little energy he felt he spared to assist, was enough to press the beast back some yards beyond their exit. It screeched as the oily makeup of its physicality congealed and constricted, seeming almost to become smaller for a moment before it reared back and pushed out again. Throwing them back as they struggled to maintain their grip.

Panting, they released the beast. It stumbled, two legs giving out as it struggled to right itself. It screamed into the ether of their bridged minds, so loudly that Ben’s hands twitched, desperate to stave off the sound by covering his ears. It wouldn’t work - he knew that logically. But the deafening screech lasted a lifetime in its few seconds. He was desperate to be rid of it.

It screamed again, louder as it lowered the esoteric shape of its head, and the sound was loud enough that an undercurrent of static noise cleared.

_...Mother, please, I can’t… _

_...alone, alone, alone, alone… _

_...the voices, make them  _ stop _ , please… _

_...miss you, Paige… _

_...please, I love you, I just… _

_...can’t believe she went after Ky… _

_...gonna blow up the whole goddamn… _

Voices. Hundreds of them buried in the beast’s congealed, oily form. Waves of emotion crashed like the unpredictable ocean of Kef Bir, receding with the tide as the creature pawed at the ground before releasing a new torrent with its next wail.

“Finn’s voice,” Rey breathed in disbelief. “And… Rose’s.”

_ And hundreds of others _ , Ben acknowledged across the bond.

The beast charged again, and together they threw all of their energy at it, sending it careening a short space as they ran toward it. Further from the doorway.

“How is that… How is that possible?” she asked as the beast howled, raising its head toward the starry sky of their surrounding realm. She panted with both impossibility and exertion.

Ben glanced at her as the beast struggled to its feet. “You were the catalyst that brought it to life. But you couldn’t keep it fed forever.”  _ It needed sustenance beyond her grief. It needed to become something different to survive. _

“Me?”

It roared again, a seismic wave of pure, unadulterated  _ misery _ spreading a nuclear cloud so strong they dropped to their knees, Rey screamed as Ben clutched at his chest, as if to try and physically rip his heart out so he’d never have to feel such pain again. It  _ ached _ , an echo of a thousand lifetimes of sorrow screaming across the chambered cavern around them. His heart, still beating abnormally in his half-life, constricted like a vice had wrapped around it.

And, beneath all that hurt and ache and despair, Rey’s grief shined like a beacon at the base. A beating heart of a lighthouse on the shores of a hundred other people’s gloom. The foundation upon which a skyscraper of agony was built.

Raw and open and  _ incredible _ in that way that only she could be. Even amid all the destruction he was awed by every aspect of her. Even the pieces no longer connected. She felt so  _ much _ . No wonder her hands never kept idle. Distraction was the only way she could possibly keep upright.

Rey shook her head beside him, a palm against her temple as the beast charged again. Another scream, but distant; a disconnected dissonance across the Force that sent Rey to her knees, clutching her skull.

“Rey!” he shouted as she crumpled to the ground, pressing his dominant leg forward and using all of his strength to hold the beast back. He pulled on the Force of their surroundings, trying to bubble a shield around them as the screaming continued, softer still as Rey clawed at her skin.

Focused on her. The beast centralized on the aspects that it knew - the tie that bound it to her. And it was pouring the essence of its sorrow straight into her.

Returning her grief a hundred fold.

The beast pummeled itself against Ben’s flimsy shield, roaring as it barreled and shouldered continuously into his wall. Gritting his teeth and ignoring the shaking of his hands, he used all of his strength to solidify his guard, even if it seemed to nearly crack under the pressure of the beast’s weight thrown against it again and again. How could something with only a corporeal form possess so much power?

“ _ Rey! _ ” he screamed, his voice falling on deaf ears. With a curse, he crept closer to her, staving off the onslaught of the beast as it reared back again and again. It pulled back and pressed its four front legs into his Force screen, oil-saturated talons ripping through the energy as it attempted, desperately, to claw its way in.

Rey was suffering in silence, curled into the fetal position and holding her head in her hands. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and she was biting down so hard on her own teeth they seemed on the verge of cracking.

It was like watching a flower wilt.

He wasn’t strong enough.

Leaning on his anger for as many years as he did, it touched down in his chest like a cyclone. Attempting to rip him apart from the inside, tear down the structure of his power until only anger remained. His blood beat a dissonant drum in his ears, drowning out the sound and suffusing his Force with Dark.

The Darkness surged through his veins. Bleeding through his bones and wrapping around him like a second skin. He wanted to destroy this thing, rip it apart from the inside out. Make it suffer the way it made Rey suffer.

He wrapped his shield around the beast, huffing as he blanketed the thing in Dark. It screeched, swiping futile claws against his anger as he compressed the creature . That power, that darkness; it shot from willing fingertips and enclosed tighter and tighter around the beast, listening to it whine as it struggled to free itself. As it screamed into the starlit ether where they existed and didn’t simultaneously.

And then he heard her whimper.

The anger seeped away nearly as quickly as it came on, rushing out like an exhale from overfull lungs. She still laid there, knees curled toward her chest and head in her hands.

Pure agony.

He dropped to his knees. Pulling from the deepest reserves of his power - the pieces of himself he couldn’t feel consciously - he threw everything he had at the beast, sending it careening back through the space some fifty yards. It screeched as it crashed through doorways, shattering the black.

Panting, Ben leaned over Rey, brushing back the hair plastered across her sweaty forehead. His arms were shaking, barely holding up his weight, as she breathed through her teeth. His thumb smoothed out the wrinkle on her forehead, cupping her jaw in his palm and watching in awe as her expression relaxed some with his touch.

Ahsoka’s voice rang in his ears. A conversation had so long ago it was nearly forgotten.

“Rey.”

She looked up at him, the tears trapped in her ducts spilling over as her eyes focused. It made him ache indescribably as she suppressed a sob. She winced again as the beast struggled to its feet.

“Hurts,” she gasped, her hand clutching his against her cheek.

“I know,” he nodded. “I know.” He glanced at the beast as it rolled its oil spill neck. “I can make it stop, I think. But. Rey. I-I need something from you.” He wouldn’t allow his emotion to display on his face. She couldn’t - couldn’t know how this was affecting him.

She nodded, agreeing before he could finish his sentence and breathing through whatever tumultuous torture the beast was putting her through, its voice barely a whistle in his own mind.

“All those parts of me I gave to you on Exegol - I need them back,” his voice broke as her eyes widened. “Rey, I need you to let me go.”

“Th-that’s…” She shook her head. “No,  _ no _ , that’s how I was able to find you. And you’re -  _ we’re not back yet _ \- what will happen if…?”

Ben held her face in his hands, pursing his lips. Because he didn’t know. In this nonexistent space, with his life nearly returned but not quite; he couldn’t be certain how his return of his Force would affect him. If it would revive him completely or…

_ You didn’t die by normal circumstances. _

_ Your tether can be broken. _

“I don’t know,” he told her truthfully. “I don’t know. But, Rey, listen--”

“ _ No, _ ” she said angrily. “No, no, because if-if that’s the last push that the cosmic Force needs to… to  _ take  _ you, then I refuse, I can’t--”

“Rey.”

“I cannot, Ben, no--”

“Rey--”

“ _ I can’t lose you again! _ ” she screamed, pushing herself up into a sitting position as the beast shook off Ben’s attack, standing on six legs once more. “ _ I can’t be alone again, Ben! _ I won’t - I won’t  _ survive _ this time without you, I--” She broke off, wincing as the beast roared around them, displeasure echoing in the chamber.

_ She must let go of your Force. _

“Cyar’ika,” Ben breathed, his knuckles brushing down her cheek. The tears he was trying futilely to keep at bay spilled all at once. The beast reared behind them, bending down on its front legs and readying to charge. He paid it little mind, offering her a smile that tore his heart open. “Remember what I said?”

Rey shook her head, lips trembling with suppressed emotion.

“I told you that I will always be with you.”

She broke, gritting her teeth as the dam of emotion shattered. Tears spilled in cascades down her cheeks, a waterfall of passion and sadness spilling all at once.

Her grief, he recognized as emotion spilled across the bond, was still missing.

“Ben, please,” she begged. “Please don’t go this way.”

He spared a glance at the beast as it huffed against the ground, coagulated oil spilling across their starlit backdrop. It had all been so beautiful - so  _ close _ . And it was fading away so quickly. The granules of an hourglass slipping between his outstretched fingertips.

Like the curtain of their connection was drawing closed.

If she was able to let him go - if those pieces of him keeping her tied to their bond dissipated - perhaps she could reabsorb the grief that helped this creature thrive. Perhaps that pain and anger could dissolve, the way it was meant to in the months following his death.

Perhaps she could finally move on.

“There is no other way,” he assured her as the creature beat its talons against the ground. “Rey, cyar’ika, please.”

Even in the darkness, her eyes were the most gorgeous shade of hazel as they traced the contours of his face. Like looking through the treetops of Endor's forest during a summer sunset. Catching his eyes, her jaw trembled as she finally nodded.

“Don’t you dare leave me,” she pleaded. “Don’t you dare, Ben Solo.”

It wasn’t a promise he could make.

“I love you,” he said, kissing her forehead for a long moment. Then, just as the beast began charging, he pressed their foreheads together, closing his eyes as her breath fanned over his face.

_ Let me go, Rey. _

He felt the way she strained to disconnect their division of Force within her. Felt the way she struggled to keep them separate, the tendrils fighting to remain together as the dyad was meant to be. Felt the way small pieces of her chipped away as she, ever so slowly, began siphoning that energy through the connection of their bare skin.

Light erupted behind his closed eyes as she fed him his own energy, those pieces of him she’d harbored impossibly warm as they slipped beneath his skin.

He took his first full breath for the first time in months.

_ Let me go. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshift candy.
> 
> I finally (very late in the game) have an alleged chapter count <3
> 
> I apologize for the delay! This chapter absolutely kicked my ass, and I appreciate the patience of all you lovely people <3
> 
> As always, thank you to my absolutely GLORIOUS beta, [Lindsay!](https://twitter.com/donegan_who/). She really bore with me during this difficult chapter.
> 
> Follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ebongawk/) for angsty reylo quips and smutty reylo threads! I have like an entire mess of minifics on there lol.
> 
> Comments and kudos are my favorite!
> 
> See you next time!


	27. Coalescence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW // ATTEMPTED RAPE
> 
> There is a brief paragraph where two men try to take advantage of Rey in her memory. I have cut this part off with *, and ended the insert with an additional *. You can skip this paragraph if this is triggering for you.

_Ben._

The voice broke through the barrier of light. It infiltrated his senses, much like the beast’s screaming had echoed directly into their minds. This was softer. A whisper; a caress of a sound; careful fingertips running through his hair, calming him after a nightmare. An attempt to break through the darkness so bent on steering him away, giving him the strength to fight for as long as he was physically able before it became too overwhelming.

It was a voice he recognized, even if he couldn’t quite place the owner.

 _You’ve done so well,_ it continued, that same genteel nature that brought a calm to his nerves and erased the anxiety of defeating the beast. _You’ve preserved that which I had lost._

Who are you? he thinks he asks.

_You made my mistakes. But you are better for them. Better than I could have ever hoped._

The voice drifted away as Ben floated through Light. Rey, he needed to get back to Rey. She was in danger. She was waiting for him.

The voice seemed to chuckle.

 _Go save what you love._  
The galaxy shattered.

And it rebuilt anew.

* * *

_Come back!_

Pain, in its purest form.

_Please, come back!_

It felt like her lungs were trying to expand out of her chest. Like every breath was an overflow, stretching muscles that didn’t exist.

_Mama! Papa! Please!_

Hadn’t she been here before? Hadn’t she watched that ship fly away a hundred times, the image searing itself onto the back of closed eyelids? The only comfort to lull a small girl to sleep as she cried water she couldn’t afford to waste was the hope that it would return one day. And she would recognize it when it did.

_I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise._

A sound in the distance like a drop of water, and suddenly she was pulled from watching those thrusters spring to life. Doused in the cold reality of a pure grief, felt in the soft emotion of a child, she was thrust instead into an older Rey.

An angrier one.  
*

An unsafe one, screaming as two off-world men reached for her. Ill intentions lined their malicious smiles, yanking her by the hair, tearing her clothes. They pulled her behind Plutt’s tent, and she saw the Crolute man turn purposefully away as he counted a handful of credits. She searched for her quarterstaff, but she hadn’t built it yet, had she?  
*

The anger culminated, and she saw red. The voice that pulled from her lungs _burned_ as it left her throat, and in the next instant the men were on their backs.

Dead. Somehow.

She didn’t think about it. She just ran.

A drop of water. A yank of grief.

She watched those people she assumed were her friends fly off in a ship she rebuilt. And it’s just like that, isn’t it? Everyone leaves in the end.

A drop of water. The grief was a tether that kept pulling her down, destroying her piece by piece as it buried her further and further in a ground of its own making. A planet with no beginning and no end, only sorrow.

Only pain.

She dreamt of an island. A place full of soft sands and the palm trees she saw in Plutt’s holodramas. She dreamt of miles of flora she could study, could pluck at her leisure and make the most brilliant bouquets to adorn every inch of the cabin they built. The dark-haired man that shared her space so comfortably, his smile dimpling when she comes home with a new armful of colorful bounty.

And then she woke up.

Everyone leaves. Even in her dreams.

A drop of water. Her wrists threaten to snap off and disintegrate with how quickly she’s shuffled from one moment to the next. How the thread that keeps yanking her and tossing her like a ragdoll, connected not to her skin but to her very bones, pulls taut at every new instance.

Her soul screamed for reprieve, and her voice was lost.

The grief submerged her in a tank with no break for air. It churned her bones to dust beneath her skin, intangible so she couldn’t keep herself aloft. She collapsed beneath the weight of it as it bore down upon her. A press into the soil of despair that filled her mouth and lungs so she couldn’t breathe.

She left the desert planet that housed her worst memories and on to produce new ones. Watching a spitting red saber as it projected out the back of the one man she could recall having ever believed in her in her entire life.

In the same instant, she felt the sting of grief from across the conduction chamber, as well.

And those haunted brown eyes looked at her, from across that great distance. And he could _see_ her.

 _I know you_.

A drop of water.

A silver cylinder she’d never seen before, but had called to her all the same. Something she _knew_ the way her blood _surged_ in time with the pulse of this weapon’s heart.

She touched it, impossible to resist the pull, and it thrust her into its past and her future.

Running through a lit tunnel as a broken staccato vocoder breathed behind her; thrown to the ground before a burning building, watching a cloaked man weep as a voice screamed _No!;_ that same spitting red saber emerging from the chest of her assailant, saving her life as a faceless monster stood beneath a torrent of rain.

He turned, and he _saw_ her.

As though he knew her.

_Come back!_

And, beneath the ringing in her ears, beneath the Crolute man’s grumbled _quiet, girl_ , the softest of promises. A voice she knew, but couldn’t place as it spoke in a hushed whisper in her mind.

_Stay here. I’ll come back for you._

_Where are you?_ she wants to scream, but her voice is lost in the ether of pain. _I can’t find you!_

_I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise._

Her vision blackened, swallowing the desert around her in a darkness so deep it was impossible to navigate. Threatening to drown her, as though the grief on its own wasn’t enough to consume, to obliterate.

And then…

A speck of pure Light.

A hand, outstretched, reaching for her. Projecting that message across time and space; offering comfort to her younger self as he drifted away.

A voice she’d clung to for years; the only thing that kept her aloft through a childhood she couldn’t comprehend without falling to pieces. Spoken not _to_ her, not directly. Spoken _into her_ , straight into her heart.

Not her parents promising their return at all.

It was Ben.

As he faded from his body - faded from _her,_ falling from her arms on Exegol and into the nothing of his death, he’d crossed realms to deliver a message that spirited her through her entire life. Farther back than he ever realized he reached, trying to offer comfort to her on Exegol and instead offering comfort to her on Jakku, decades before.

It was always Ben.

That grief reared all at once, screaming a cacophony of noiseless sound into her ears. Trying to drag her back into the black of her own memories and trap her there forever.

But she didn’t hear it anymore.

Rey reached for that outstretched hand.

Their fingers intertwined, and the force of their connection jolted her back into herself. Away from the pain and the grief that had obstructed her existence for - seconds? Hours? Days?

She could feel the warmth of his skin. The twitch of his fingers as they interlocked with hers, the press of his flesh and bone as he pulled her closer.

The wholeness of him. The thrum of his energy, so familiar within him.

The energy she’d harbored in her own body had slept quietly, deeply, waiting for his return. Braiding and twining with her own Force, putting pieces of her to sleep, as well. Calling on him when she needed him, but unconsciously allowing him to rest otherwise.

The half of her still awake wept for his terrestrial loss. The half of her asleep was keeping him alive all the while.

But he was never lost. He never left her.

_No one is ever really gone._

“Ben,” she whispered, and _oh_ the way he smiled in response.

That… That was the Light.

It was never about the Force, about the Dark Side or the Jedi. It was about Ben.

All those years spent alone on Jakku, waiting for the return of two parents who sold her off under the guise of protection. All that time she spent dreaming about an island, living in a bliss she couldn’t properly gauge with a man she’d never met.

She was never truly alone. She was always a part of this.

A part of him.

He _breathed_ , and she _felt_ the way his lungs expanded fully for the first time in months. The way his heart beat a steady, sure rhythm within his chest, pumping warm blood through his veins. The way he _lived_.

Whole.

Complete.

Rey’s jaw shook with emotion.

And the world _screamed_ around them.

The blackness in which they found themselves wavered, shimmering and shuddering as it heaved, coalescing into a singular mass above their heads and making the rest of their existence bleed away.

And she realized, quite suddenly, that the creature of her own creation had swallowed them whole. Her memories, thrusting that exquisite pain through her at lightspeed, were its digestive process.

Trapped... in the belly of the beast.

“Rey,” Ben shouted over the grumbling noise that seemed to make her blood vibrate beneath her skin. She shook, holding fast to his hand, keeping him by her side.

Where he belonged. Always.

She felt as he pulled energy against himself - that natural, sure way he manipulated the Force. Second nature to him after so many years spent honing his sixth sense. He wrapped it around them like a shield just as the bubble of grief _burst_ , searing the protective cast in talon-like scars of misery. Ben winced but held strong, gritting his teeth and leaning into the onslaught as it tore the world apart around them. Pure white light filtered in through the cracks as the blackness groaned, splitting like the ground after an earthquake.

A booming crash of thunder, and the walls came crumbling down.

Rey blinked against the sudden brightness.

The screaming ceased all at once, and she felt Ben squeeze her hand as her eyes cleared of the starburst effect left behind by the sudden change in light.

There, standing before her was Ben.

Not her Ben - still standing beside her, pulling her closer as he comprehended the view in front of them. But a Ben she recognized all the same. The Ben from the cave beneath Tatooine’s surface; the Ben she reached for that day in the Lars estate’s kitchen, begging for assistance he didn’t offer.

Not her Ben at all. A different creature altogether. Something she’s now realizing is… not entirely human.

And standing behind it, a stretch of a thousand shadow people stare back at them. Though eyeless, she felt them measuring every breath she took. Felt them watching as her and her Ben orbited each other like binary stars.

As one, the entities opened their depthless mouths.

The emotions run over her in a torrent. A rainstorm on Ahch-To, drenching her from head to toe in sorrow and despair. The noiseless dread dimmed the light of their surroundings, and so much sorrow and anger and hatred threatened to pull the skin from her very bones; the soul from her very body. Her blood attempted to coagulate within her veins, threatening to shatter with the frequency of pain as it was cast around them.

The monster wanted to absorb and eradicate them. Make them one with its own grief and pain, take everything from them it hadn’t already.

But it wasn’t a monster at all.

She did this.

It hit her like a speeder, sending her careening into a void of self-disdain and depreciation. Her own selfishness pulled together something horrifying, something awful that attacked so many. That absorbed and manipulated these human emotions to become something sinister, something…

Something so, so sad.

 _It isn’t a life_ , she thought, her heart shattering anew. _It is the embodiment of dread._

Ben squeezed her hand.

The connection, the oneness of their bond buzzed in anticipation beneath her skin. It filled her heart and lungs, pollinating the garden of hope in her chest, the flowers turning toward the sun of him. As they always would.

He came back to life for her. He waited for months in his half-death for her, sitting on a planet designed to keep him trapped and having faith she would be the one to release him.

The grief that she’d sheltered in her chest, beating a heartbeat of desolation until this being was able to breathe on its own; she needed to address it. Harbor it, absorb it.

_Let it go._

This creature, created of her energy, was an enmity against the Force. And it wanted to destroy them to claim the life it felt it was created for. Pulling on the grief and pain and sorrow of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people across the galaxy. Meticulously piecing together junctions of dejection like she’d pieced together old flight uniforms to make her doll on Jakku.

As one, their arms came up. All at once, the screeching of the shadow people stopped, a glare in the depthless hollow eyes as the emotion surged.

Ben grunted as Rey snarled, and they pulled the Force against them like a battering ram, sending that despair right back.

A battle of strength and a test of will.

The anger reared in waves, a barrage of emotion after emotion attempting to wash over them. To drag them back into those black depths. They shouldered the brunt of it, sending the torrent back again and again. Rey’s muscles protested every movement, her lungs; every breath as sweat poured her brow.

As the momentum of emotion built, Rey opened the bond completely.

Ben’s mind flooded hers as she destroyed the door she’d used to keep him out. Their Force slotted together all at once, familiar perfection thrumming a new energy. A braid of completeness, not at all like the comfort she’d felt while harboring his energy. No, this was a fullness, a _wholeness._ Impossible to accurately describe.

It was a belly full without the worry of meal scarcity. It was the way she fit in his embrace like his arms had been built to house her body. It was the way he filled her, the way they moved as one. It was the slide of her skin against his creating new constellations, new _galaxies_.

It was lips that tasted like the future.

It was a lifetime of togetherness.

_Home._

Their combined Force expanded and _exploded_ in the same instant, an overfull balloon releasing the pressure that had built up in seconds, in _years_.

This was a true dyad.

The power of a thousand people, their strongest emotions - it couldn’t compare.

They took that power and they thrust it _out_.

With a clench of their hands, that power compressed, wrapping around those hundreds of shadow people with Force-rendered fists. The tormented souls cried out all at once, a ballad of horror at the face of what was to come.

Screaming, Rey and Ben clenched their fists all at once.

The heartache dissolved into the Force. Reabsorbed it and dispersed, flickering and shuddering in a kaleidoscope of blue-lit fireflies, fluttering away.

Until it was only her. Only Ben.

Facing the shadow replica of her other half.

The creature snarled, sending another wave of despair.

Despair belonging only to Rey.

Instead of sending it back, as Ben prepared to do; capitalizing on what he felt would work again, Rey took a slow, deep breath.

And instead of pushing it away, she grabbed that emotion.

And she pulled it in.

Ben startled beside her, gripping her hand like a lifeline. As though preparing to physically yank her out of the misery when it immersed her once more.

But she knew, now, what she had to do.

The shadow Ben screeched, the sound echoing in the empty chamber of Light and Dark and the nothing that encased them in a tomb of Force. In the next instant, it reared up again, the body warping and lurching as it shot another rush of longing and grief.

She screamed, same as the beast, when she pulled it once more into herself. It curled like smoke in her lungs, filling her body with anger and fear and Dark.

But it was already there, wasn’t it? Once upon a time, it had _lived_ in her, stuffed away and forgotten as she moved about her life. Only rearing up when her heart ached with that blinding pain, so powerful it felt as though the muscle might tear itself in two.

 _Grief is a very powerful thing_.

Ben squeezed her hand, nodding once when she glanced at him. The shadow beast morphed, abandoning the form of her dyad as it shuffled through a multitude of beings. Unable to pick a face, becoming the outline of her parents, of Unkar Plutt, of the men who nearly stole her innocence, of Han Solo.

 _And it will try to consume you_.

The next torrent of despair was nearly crippling in its purity. Her knees buckled, and Ben grabbed whatever he could carry of her pain and let it devour him. Bearing it across their bridged minds.

Carrying her when she could barely keep herself upright.

The creature screamed again, oily appendages shooting in every direction as it tried to correct itself, to _exist_. Part of Rey felt that desperation within herself; that need to survive, it doesn’t fade away with complacency when it was so formative during her childhood.

But this entity’s life belonged to her.

Panting, chests heaving, they grabbed hold of the beast with their Force, Ben bearing down as Rey wrapped her energy around it. The thing screamed, trapped, echoing its own formed anger as it catapulted Rey’s across the distance. Sending their robes billowing in an unseen wind that Rey squinted against as they pulled the thing closer.

_Don’t let it consume you._

They pulled it in, constricting it tighter and tighter. Wrapping ribbons of Force around it like a gift, cinching the loose ends until only a singular form remained.

Until it was only the form of a small girl, scared and helpless, the three buns on the back of her head were an echo of the style her mother left her with. The same buns she would wear for years afterward. The same buns that had her hoping someone, someday might recognize her. Might want her.

Her grief had culminated in Ben’s death, but it had sprouted from this child.

And she knew now that she had always been wanted.

Those unseeing eyes looked up at her, fear radiating off of the small shoulders of her deepest anguish. It shook as Rey reached out, tiny hands balling into fists as it fought against the restraints placed around it by Rey and Ben.

“It’s okay,” Rey whispered. Her vision blurred, growing watery as she carefully caressed the black cheek of that terrified child.

_And that’s why it’s okay to cry._

She knelt in front of her own shadow, keeping a careful hand on the blackened energy while not relenting on its bondages. It fought, kicking and screaming in silence.

Ben came to kneel beside her, their hands still interlocked as he brought his own palm to the child’s other cheek. He looked at her, his own eyes glassy with her emotion, and she nodded.

“I told you I’d come back for you, sweetheart,” he said, and the child stopped her thrashing. Its darkened eyes locked onto his face. Looking at him like that desert child was seeing the rain for the first time. “Thank you. For staying.”

“It’s time to come back,” Rey supplied, and the shadow’s attention snapped toward her. A growl built in the Force around them, vibrating with fear and anger and _grief_ , in that same raw, untamed emotion that only a child could feel. Rey grimaced as the tears slipped down her cheeks. “It’s time to come home.”

The fighting stopped. The child - the Rey she’d ignored and stuffed away, locking up tight in her heart and burying beneath layers of brick - seemed to shudder. It stared at Rey for a long moment, contemplating. It had torn itself out of the mausoleum in which Rey had buried it, pretending it didn’t exist and allowing that graveyard to expand in her chest.

The graveyard, where she’d buried her ghosts and her grief. Transformed now into a garden full of beautiful, vibrant flowers. A reflection of the place where she’d been reunited with her own heart.

_Home?_

“Home,” Rey nodded. Promised. The child _breathed,_ its tiny head leaning back on its shoulders. As though it could look for the answer in the nonexistent stars above.

The undercurrent of sound Rey hadn’t noticed around them dulled, fading out into the nothing as the white leached away. Everything grew terribly quiet, until she heard nothing but Ben’s breathing and her own heartbeat in her ears. Their Force still thrummed, keeping the child confined and complacent. She glanced at Ben, and ever so slowly, they unraveled the creature.

It didn’t move for a long moment. It only looked up at the stars. Waiting for a ship that was never going to return; dreaming of a man she could never hope to meet; watching as the ship she built flew away.

Always searching the galaxy. The distance. The horizon.

With its next inhale, the depthless eyes seemed to close on the child’s oily face.

 _Home_ , it breathed.

It reached up, wrapping both Rey and Ben’s hands in its tiny little fists.

And then it fluttered into a thousand blue-lit fireflies. They coalesced, swimming in the black around them for a moment before settling on Rey’s outstretched arm, climbing back into her skin and settling there. Her hand shook as she swallowed around a lump in her throat.

That grief settled back where it had been for all those months and years she’d housed it. But it felt... _different_. New in an inexplicable way. It existed, but it was settled. No longer a beast stalking behind the cage of her ribs, now it was…

It was a part of her.

Something that had built her into the person she is, yes. But something that was reborn, as well. Absorbed in the most therapeutic way.

Still there. Just accepted now.

Ben pulled her to stand, and before she could speak, he was kissing her. He cupped her face in his hands, ravaging her lips with his, and she could feel his relief across their bond, still blown wide open and whole between them. His awe and his admiration fully on display.

“You are the strongest person I know,” he whispered against her kiss-bruised lips. “And I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispered back, eyes closed, feeling the press of his forehead against hers.

Wind rushed around them as sensation crawled like gooseflesh across her skin. She paid it no mind, chasing his lips and stealing another moment more.

When they opened their eyes, they were standing in the star-spackled encompassment of the vergence scatter, before the thorn-lined doorway of their future. Rey’s hesitant fingers reached toward it, pressing against the black glass and gasping as it rippled like water. Unlike the doorway to her past from before, this one didn’t show an image to tempt her toward the other side. It knew, as they did, that she and Ben would cross the threshold regardless of what lay on the other side. She looked at him, eyes already trained on her. Together, they nodded.

They took a deep breath as one, fingers tangled together, and on the exhale, they stepped through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin in with another chapter update.
> 
> We are converging on the end here, my dears.
> 
> HUGE INCREDIBLE WONDERFUL shoutout to my AMAZING BETA [Lindsay!](https://twitter.com/donegan_who/) who inspired a large portion of this chapter and is my number one fan.  
> Feel free to talk to me on [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/ebongawk/)
> 
> Let me know what you think of this chapter <3


	28. You're With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW // PREGNANCY MENTION**
> 
> **NOT REYLO
> 
> There is a brief section of story where a pregnancy is discussed between two characters. I have marked the beginning and end of this section with an asterisk (*). Please skip this part if this is triggering for you.

Rey had expected the same sensation of falling through space and time, as she had experienced when she’d made her way into the vergence scatter. She had prepared herself for the near-wet cold that would suffuse beneath her skin, for the way her body would float long enough that she wouldn’t remember what it felt like to stand.

Perhaps that’s why, as their feet touch the rocky outcropping that felt both incredibly foreign and alarmingly familiar, Rey stumbled. She nearly fell, but Ben’s strong grip on her elbow kept her upright.

Keeping her afloat.

The air here was desolate. Neither cold nor warm, it melted against her skin like transparent fog. Something tangible and hypothetical at once. It crackled with electricity as the distance above them illuminated in brief flashes.

Of course they’d end up here.

The doorway behind them, with its canopy of stars twinkling in the distance, faded out of existence when she chanced a glance backward. Effectively sealing them into their fate of life, telling them with no amount of uncertainty that her choice would not be granted a refund.

Not that she would ever want one.

The past months spent alone on Tatooine already felt like a distant dream. Shards of black and white, pieced together like a muddled stained glass portrait. The picture didn’t make sense, it only existed. The water-damaged chapter of her life.

Time that didn’t matter anymore. Not with Ben’s rebirth.

She took a moment to assess their surroundings, trying to figure out the best course of action in which to climb from this literal pit. The walls were full of jutted rock - if they used her dust guards to wrap their hands, they could probably climb out relatively unscathed. She’d free-handed star destroyers that were taller and more perilous than this.

Her dust guards were still tucked away in her duffel, but it would be nothing to tear off sheets of fabric to use as a buffer between their skin and the rough rock.

“Ben, we should--”

One hand was still wrapped loosely around her own, but the other was held aloft. Palm up, flexing his fingers as though testing the skin around them. Gauging the pull of his flesh, the give of his veins as they pulsed blood and  _ life _ within his body.

“Ben?”

He looked at her, eyes swimming with emotion that spilled across the bond in an overflow of disbelief and awe. A geyser of intensity and fear and  _ warmth _ at the fact that she had risked everything just to have him beside her once more.

As though that was a life that she had opted to leave behind. As though she could  _ be _ in a world where he wasn’t.

She could survive there, yes. She did it for months upon months. Had her heart not ached in that all-encompassing circumstance, she may have even thrived. She may have had the constraint to build the school for Force-sensitives she’d once dreamt of, or to join Poe, Finn and Rose in their endeavor to restore the Republic and the Senate. Perhaps she would have found herself a diplomat one day, rebuilding the democracy that had been twice so crassly destroyed.

But would she have  _ lived? _

No. She decided in the same moment that she would have forever been confined to a half-life.

“But--”

“There was never another option for me,” she interrupted him with a watery smile. “Had it not been this way, I would have found another alternative. I would have searched every end of the galaxy for that monolith, crossed through every doorway in the vergence scatter.” His eyes filled as she laughed. “I-I would have found a way to-to go back and drag you away from that fate, Ben, I would have  _ found you, _ because I--”  _ love you _ .

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. He descended upon her like a man starved, lips and teeth and  _ tongue _ overwhelming her senses. She kissed him back with every fervor, meeting him with every gasp for breath and every graze of teeth against her sensitive flesh.

His emotions hit her in a whirlwind of gratitude and love and that unyielding disbelief. A chanting song of  _ this can’t be real, how do I deserve this, how is she real?  _ underlaid his ferocity.

She pulled back, a hand on his chest stilling him as he chased her lips.

“You deserve this,” she implored him, searching his eyes to make sure her message took root. To make sure the garden in his chest might one day flourish and bloom as hers did. “This is real, Ben. And you deserve it.”

His jaw worked as though he was searching through his brain like a dictionary for the correct words. In lieu of an answer, he simply kissed her again.

Rey groaned, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. His desire bled across the bond in a riptide of want, threatening to drag her by the ankles into his depths. To drown her in his need for her.

It was impossible to resist the pull of his waves. She didn’t even try.

Instead, she hoisted herself into his arms, sighing when he caught her without hesitation. He whisked her through the air, and the cold rock wall pressed against the heated skin of her back. His hands circled her thighs in a desperate grip, fingertips digging into her flesh beneath the fabric of her trousers as though she were the only lifeline keeping him tethered to the realm of the living.

She wasn’t. Not anymore.

His tongue traced the shape of her lips as she bunched the fabric of his tunic in her hands. Ripping it over his head in a brief break for air, she traced the bare skin of his chest as he ravaged her willing mouth, tongue plundering and dancing with her own.

He palmed at her breasts beneath her tunic, dipping his hand into her neckline and her breast band to pinch the sensitive flesh of her nipple. She broke away from his lips with a keen, allowing him unfettered access to her throat.

He began a trail of bruising kisses as her blunt fingernails scratched down his chest. He pressed his entire body weight into her, using one hand to yank her trousers down as the other greedily drank in the feel of her bare skin.

His own trousers were only pushed down enough to release his aching member, and she lined him up with her entrance.

This wasn’t the slow, gradual coupling they’d had on Mortis. This was as frantic as it was desperate. There was no slow stretching - Ben gave one hard thrust, sheathing himself inside her completely. She groaned, the burn in her pelvis delectable in its actuality. He only paused a moment, panting into her neck, before he began fucking her in earnest.

He needed this as much as she did. He needed to know that she was real, viable and warm in his arms as much as she needed to verify that he was alive, finally, beside her and  _ inside _ of her where he belonged.

His thrusts were deep and measured, hard and fast in their rhythm. Hitting all those perfect spots within her that only he had access to, his desire and desperation bleeding in torrents across the bond.

Rey felt her own emotions, her own physical reactions, but she felt  _ his _ , as well. How tight and hot and  _ wet _ she was around his cock. How her walls fluttered as though they could pull him in deeper. The way her skin and sweat danced across his taste buds as he sucked bruises into her neck.

Contrarily, he could feel the press of his length against every crevice within her body. The way he lit her nerve endings on fire, the way he pressed against that secret spot within her that made her writhe and moan in echoes that were music to his ears.

He adjusted his angle, hitting that spot over and over, grabbing her jaw in a possessive grip and kissing her as though he wanted to consume her. As though he could  _ own her _ .

He couldn’t, not really. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to give every piece of herself to him.

“Cyar’ika,” he breathed against her lips, panting against her skin. Breathing his words into her blood, feeding more of that desire, that collection of  _ yes, fuck, so beautiful, so wet and tight for me _ into her marrow. Making her  _ feel _ everything he was feeling until tears were streaming down her cheeks. She dug her nails into his shoulders to keep herself anchored, convinced she might shoot off into the ether of his passion otherwise.

The hand on her jaw kept his access uninhibited to her mouth as he fucked her harder. He growled when she nipped his lip and eased his punishing pace into deep thrusts that forced her to feel every inch of his length as it dragged along her sensitive inner flesh.

Overwhelmed, she could barely breathe. Every inhale was a gasp as he drove her rapidly toward rhapsody. He pressed closer to her, using his hips to grind against her clit, and she flew over the edge into oblivion.

Ben lasted only long enough to draw out her orgasm before he was painting her inner walls with his spend, and the rush of it, the sensation of his own release across the bond prolonged her own climax until her thighs were shaking around him. She sobbed into his shoulder, smothered in the perception of belonging both to herself and to him.

Ben kissed either cheek before wiping away her tears, kissing her softly as he eased his softening member from between her legs. Rey winced at the loss, sighing against his lips when he didn’t immediately release her. Allowing her a moment to come back to herself, to find her strength once more.

Suddenly, she was exhausted.

“Me, too,” he chuckled, brushing flyaway hairs back behind her ear and pressing his forehead against her own. She wanted to cry all over again. That he was  _ tired _ , that he could feel exhausted, was simply another indication that he was  _ alive _ . Such was never a fact she’d get tired of hearing.

He lowered her back to the ground only when he felt she could stand once more. And then he held her up by the elbows, laughing when her knees threatened to buckle. Earning him a half-hearted glare.

Their pit illuminated with the random bursts of electricity that stretched a web above the planet. It didn’t feel as Dark here as it once had, with so much of the stain purged at the end of the war. This planet, once inhabited by the parasites that had attached themselves to the cosmic Force and bled fear and anger and hatred into it, had finally been sanctified after too many years spent hiding and plotting on its very surface.

Exegol.

It seemed almost poetic that they might end their journey here. Or rather, that they might begin their journey anew, after all this time.

The planet where everything ended would be the planet where everything began again.

“This wall here seems easiest to scale,” Rey said, looking up the steep incline as she fastened her trousers and tucked her breast back into its band. Ben was pulling his tunic over his head, running a hand through his tangled hair that she wanted desperately to muss up all over again.

But, no. It was time to get out, and figure out how to escape Exegol.

Kriff.

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. How in the Maker were they supposed to get off this planet?

“We’ll figure it out,” Ben answered her unasked question. “Maybe my Imperial TIE is still here.”

She was fairly certain the debris of the fallen star destroyers would have disposed of that, but there was no reason to dwell on uncertainty. Instead, she yanked her dust guards from her rucksack, ripping off long strands and handing some to Ben before wrapping her own pieces around her hands.

“Think it’s any easier with two working legs?” she teased him as he grabbed the first hand hold, testing his weight on it. He glanced at her, a brow raised.

“Are you challenging me, cyar’ika?”

She grinned, jumping up and grasping a small ledge, then hoisting herself up to the next juncture. Ben laughed behind her, and she felt the Force warp around him as they began their ascent to new life.

“Cheating!” she shouted while using the Force to propel her own movements.

“Rules were never established,” he grunted, far closer than he should be for how quick she knew she was.

They reached the top in a matter of minutes, the laugh bubbling in Rey’s chest from her claimed victory fading as they stood amongst the ruins of the cathedral.

It was almost completely covered in debris and rock, half of a hyperspace engine having fallen from the waste above and destroyed much of the coliseum. But above all the rock and dust, the top of the throne still stuck out, a tombstone commemorating a forgotten time.

They were merely unintended guests in a large crypt. Thousands had lost their lives here, and in a matter of months this place had become nothing more than a wasteland of ruin and decay. An entire civilization had perished in a single day, and only ghosts inhabited this place now.

It was as eerie as it was sad to know this place, that once thrived independently of the rest of the galaxy, had fallen into nothing more than an unmarked graveyard of ship fragments and corpses. That no one existed to mourn these people who were raised as acolytes with warped minds and dark hearts.

How easily everything was ripped away, she thought.

Her knuckles stretched automatically to accommodate his fingers as he threaded their hands together. Pulling her out of her reverie before she could spiral any further.

“Let’s go,” he smiled, and she grinned in response.

There was a sense of  _ rightness _ that nearly overwhelmed her as they exited that cavernous cemetery together. A feeling of  _ what should have been _ , hands clasped, hopping over fallen rock and avoiding the destruction of various star destroyers. For the first time in her life, Rey didn’t pause to ponder how many portions she might get for so many untouched spoils. Her mind and heart were full of  _ Ben _ . He was pulling her along, intent eyes forward as though trying to physically rip her from the memories of this place. But the destruction was second to the feeling of his hand in hers as they stood on that barely-operational lift. As they walked through the darkness toward the end of the enclosure that housed generations of hatred and anguish.

Readying themselves to leave it all behind. To finally let the past die.

After everything they went through to find their way back to one another, she shouldn’t have been surprised that the  _ Falcon _ was sitting idle on the improvised landing pad beyond the opening of the cave.

Ben stopped short, his eyes wider than she’d ever seen them as he stared at Han Solo’s ship. As though his own ghosts were manifesting, coming back from a past she wasn’t sure he was ready to face.

Rey squeezed his hand, smiling when he finally spared her a glance.

“Wh-what--?”

“Let’s go find out, yeah?” Rey grinned. “Seems she’s been waiting for us.”

Trance-like, he followed her to the gangplank, holding his breath as she lowered it for them with a practiced ease. Ben took a deep, slow breath as she made her way up the ramp, pausing at the entrance.

She remembered another moment like this, more lifetimes ago than she could count, on a salted planet full of longing and remorse.

There was only disbelief now. A skeleton sinking bony fingers into the fresh soil of its grave, emerging from the casket of his mind as it breathed the same life that rushed in and out of his lungs. A moment suspended in time, waiting for him to reach out and grasp it.

_ You’re not real, you’re just a memory. _

_ Your memory. _

A breath. A wish. Hope like a dare in his heart.

_ I miss you, son. _

_ Come home. _

Ben ascended the ramp.

The shockwave of his veneration reverberated through the dusty halls of the ship. It rippled through her in a soft sort of appreciation, an ocean of memories gently lapping at the sands of her psyche. Part of her wanted to dip her feet in, let those recollections run over her toes, but she allowed Ben his moment of dwelling as his fingertips skimmed the dejarik table, the worn cushions of the communal bench, the various panels and equipment that had been ripped apart and put back together by his father.

Rey made her way into the cockpit, readying herself to start the liftoff sequence, inspect their fuel levels, assess any damage to the ship, when a blinking light on the dash caught her attention.

“Ben?” she called, smiling to herself at the sound of his thunderous footsteps making their way up the durasteel hallway. It was the most natural sound in the world, a commotion that belonged in these halls. He rounded the corner, an eyebrow quirked when he caught her in the captain’s chair. “Looks like we have a message waiting for us.”

He stood a moment, steeling himself for the measure of unanticipated events that were happening in succession, before leaning over her seat and clicking the comm link channel open.

The image stuttered before the familiar, tiny pirate woman, flanked by a comically large wookiee filled the holoprojector.

“Hey, kids!” she said, a bright grin on her goggle-adorned face. Maz held up her hands. “Don’t ask me how I knew. I won’t tell ya.”

Chewie grumbled in the background, something that sounded suspiciously like  _ if this hunch is wrong, woman… _ as Maz continued on without batting an eye.

“Not sure how long it’ll take you to receive this message, but myself and my lovely boyfriend will be on Takodana for the foreseeable future.” She nudged Chewbacca in the knee with her elbow as the wookiee rolled his eyes. “Lando will probably be in and out, as well.”

“I don’t condone this!” Lando’s voice echoed from the unseen distance across the projection, making Rey giggle.

“Once you kids are ready,” Maz shrugged, waving Lando’s interruption off, “come see me. Castle’s most of the way rebuilt.” She quirked an incredulous brow, and even through the projection, it seemed as though she was staring straight at Ben. He winced. “We’ll be waiting.”

Chewie took a step toward the projection. He seemed to hesitate briefly, and then he spoke.

“ _ Can’t wait to see you, kids. Both of you.” _

The message ended with a bright flare of blue as the projection whirred off.

Rey released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, turning in her chair to look at Ben. His eyes were downcast, jaw working in that nervous tick.

“Hey,” Rey said, reaching out and taking his hands in hers. He looked at her, and the lost look in his eyes reflected so much of that scared little boy he once was. The one he struggled in vain to tamp down and destroy during his years under Snoke’s tutelage. “It’s okay. We don’t have to go.”

Ben sighed, sinking into the co-pilot’s seat without releasing her hands.

“She said we can go when we’re ready,” he repeated the old pirate’s words. “I think she’ll understand if we take a few weeks to ourselves.”

“Or months,” Rey chirped, turning in her seat to begin their takeoff sequence. Ben smiled in her peripheral, one hand still holding hers as he began his own list of prerequisites to get this ship off the ground. She knew, more than anyone, not to get used to her seat - that Ben would claim the captain’s chair in due time, when he was ready. When he’d reconciled his demons the way Rey had been forced to do in that in-between realm of the vergence scatter. Hopefully his own childhood wouldn’t haunt them the way hers was so inclined to do.

The practiced ease he used to navigate the ship’s controls struck a chord deep in her chest. It echoed across all those years lost to darkness and hatred, worming itself deeper, through the cold topsoil of her own fears and into the warm depths of her heart.

This is healing, she thought, squeezing his fingers between her own.

He grinned at her, brilliant and warm, and he’d never looked more at home than he did now in the cockpit of his father’s ship. His eyes sparkled in the light of the overhead controls, something she found overwhelmingly boyish and unendingly soft. He was beautiful and carefree and  _ alive _ , she reminded herself once more.

This was always their ending, she decided. Side-by-side, in the cockpit of this ship where so many bonds had been created. Where so many more might strengthen in the future.

She loved him irrevocably, and there was a settled excitement in her chest at the prospect of being able to tell him every day.

Rey would tell him every day.

“Or months,” Ben chuckled in agreement. “In the meantime, have you ever been to Naboo?”

* * *

_ Five years later _

“Master Tico, when do we get to start lightsaber training?”

A chorus of  _ yeahs _ and  _ whens _ erupted across the small collection of children, and Finn smiled with a roll of his eyes. This was an everyday occurrence at this point.

His own saber shifted against his hip, as though it, too, held the same anticipation his handful of students did when its use was prospected. But his school was still overwhelmingly new, and he’d yet to figure out all of the ins and outs of this whole Jedi Master thing. Hell, he hadn’t even had anyone there to bequeath the title to him - Rey had called him one day, out of the blue, and said,  _ I think you’re ready to start training students _ .

As half of his dual guide throughout this process, who was he to disagree with her assessment?

“Today, we’re going to start with meditation,” he said instead of answering his boisterous, insistent padawans. They all groaned in unison at his avoidance. There were six of them in total, ranging in ages from eight to fourteen. He’d collected them when reading the ancient texts - and a lot of help from C-3PO - had strengthened his connection to the Force. He was able to feel their signatures calling out to his own - students that were in need of a teacher, the way he had been, once upon a time.

He’d never gotten much of a teacher. Rey had left him with those texts and a few positive words, but his wife had been the one that insisted he actually pick them up and  _ do _ something with their knowledge.

He was building a lightsaber that same year, then building his school two years later, once he felt somewhat proficient and Rey had insisted he was ready.

“Then we’ll move on to hand-to-hand combat,” he continued, walking a circle around his anxious students. They gasped in excitement, and Finn smirked. “No Force powers allowed.”

The grumbling was as immediate as it was fulfilling, and they all shuffled off to take their meditation stances.

Rose emerged from their school, Senate robes stained with the same oil that adorned her cheek and forehead. Finn jogged up to her, chuckling at her state of being.

“Master Tico,” she greeted playfully.

“Senator Tico,” Finn responded, pulling her into an embrace.

*

Her protruding belly made the reach for her small shoulders almost comical. Finn kissed her cheek, careful to avoid the smudge of oil decorating her skin, before putting a hand on the round of her stomach. His Force permeated her skin automatically, seeking out the small being that lay within the protection of Rose’s body.

“How’s our daughter?”

“Well,” Rose smiled, glowing in the morning rays of Arkanis’ seldom-achieved clear sun. There were rain clouds on the horizon, and Finn figured he’d probably need to move the students in by lunch. “Exhausting, but if she’s anything like her namesake, that’s inevitable anyway.”

Rose put a hand over his, pressing it a little more firmly into her skin. The responding kick from the inside of her body never failed to leave him breathless.

“And how’s the mother?”

“Also exhausted,” Rose laughed, brushing a stray hair back from her forehead. “The Republic Restored leaves no quarter when it comes to those Senate meetings.”

Finn’s eyes narrowed with concern. “You can take a break. Until after the baby is born and you’re settled. You don’t have to keep coming here and fixing up our electrical system, either, I can--”

*

“Finn,” Rose interrupted him, smiling as she took his hand in both of hers. “I’m okay. Being tired is okay. Every day I feel more fulfilled doing all of this. I am happy. That’s what matters.”

Finn grumbled for a moment, taking the time to breathe out his distress so as not to negatively affect his wife. Collecting himself had become a far easier task with his uninterrupted access to the Force.

“Any word from Rey?”

“I saw them, actually,” Rose smiled that cheeky smile. “Rey  _ and _ Ben.” Finn huffed, taking another moment to breathe. Kylo -- no,  _ Ben Solo _ had somehow come back from the dead, in a mysterious way that Rey had never quite explained properly. And though Finn was doing  _ better _ with the new permanent fixture in his best friend’s life -  _ and _ his wife’s life, as she and Ben had become oddly close - it still stung a bit, seeing them together.

He made her so endlessly happy, though, and Finn could appreciate that above everything else. Just… getting used to it was an uphill battle. Especially because he saw them maybe twice every standard year, and only in brief spurts. Being confined to Arkanis with his students, he couldn’t make the time to go to Chandrila or Takodana where they made pit stops to see Maz for supplies or to inform Poe and Rose of their latest conquests.

“How are they?” he asked.

“Good!” Rose chirped, linking their arms together and taking them on a stroll around the meditation grounds as his students sat silently in the middle. “They’ve taken Tatooine back from the Hutts, actually, which no one had ever expected. And the development of Jakku’s industrial city has made some steep headway. I think the mines will be open by early next year.”

Finn smiled despite himself. He didn’t hear from Rey for nearly a year after she disappeared - and then, all of a sudden, she was on Takodana, talking to Lando and Maz and Poe about the possibility of reclaiming big mob hubs and ending slavery once and for all in the name of the Republic Restored. He’d made his way there, new wife beside him, and the beam of his purple saber made its first offensive appearance when he attacked Kylo Ren.

Kylo’s own white blade had come up only to deflect Finn’s attack before Rey was screaming at him to back down. Her yellow saber was ignited, pointed toward Finn in protection of Ren, much to Finn’s confusion.

She’d said words like  _ dyad _ and  _ vergence scatter _ and  _ Mortis _ and Finn hadn’t really understood much of anything, but he could  _ feel _ the connection between them. The way it was open and whole, thrumming across their Force signatures until they blended into a singular person in that web of energy.

And even then, no matter how much Finn fought it, Ben had become a principle guide on his journey to begin training Force-sensitives. An immeasurable asset, giving calm, collected insight into schooling and into the Jedi, insight that only he, as a former student himself, could offer. As much right as he was trying to do both across the galaxy and between their fractured friendship, Finn could appreciate that the man was at least attempting to right his wrongs.

He should have known something was coming when the anger had returned in its full force.

In the absence of that bubbling anger and confusion, it had been so easy to realize how much he adored and depended on Rose Tico. To invite her into his life with open arms where only confusion and disbelief had been before. To settle that trepidation over Rey’s disappearance with reassurances from both Rose and from the wellspring of energy in his mind that Rey was okay, that she was doing what was  _ right _ . When those emotions returned, Rose had been in his bed at the Republic Restored base on Chandrila, after he told her he loved her for the first time.

Those gut-wrenching emotions and memories had been sucked like venom from his mind returned in the middle of the night, weeks after Rey and Ben’s interdimensional success. Pieces of himself that Finn hadn’t realized were missing seemed to almost sigh when they settled back into his chest where they belonged. Rose had awoken that night with a gasp, a hand on her heart and tears in her eyes.

When she looked at him then, lying beside her, she’d smiled the biggest grin he could possibly imagine on her countenance.

“They did it,” she whispered in the darkness. “Rey found him, and they did it.”

Like the snake on Pasaana, healed by Rey’s Force and touch, his anger was a wounded animal that had been tended. It slithered away in a rumble of energy and rightness, departed as his depth of emotion for his significant other had personified.

At the time, he may not have liked it, but it didn’t tear him apart anymore.

Though it helped, later, that Rey never shut up about how much she loved Ben when they did find time to speak.

“How are the students?” Rose asked, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked and yanking Finn out of his memories, back to the present.

“Aggravating,” he said, loudly enough that the few who were clearly not meditating could hear him. They all winced, then resumed their cross-legged reaching into the Force. “But good. They all learn so quickly.”

“And my husband?”

He loved hearing that. Finn loved this little family they’d created - with Rose; with Rey and Ben, out in the galaxy fighting every day for peace; with Maz and Chewie on Takodana as it became something of a secret reconnaissance stop for the Republic Restored; with Poe, who made as much time as possible to stop by and teach his students how to be excellent pilots - and how to not get caught by Finn with contraband.

With the students themselves, who brought a light to his life he’d never known he was missing. They were going on break soon, one of the three two-week excursions he awarded them every year to return to their home planets and see their families. He was already anticipating how much he’d miss them in their absence.

“I’m also good,” Finn smiled. “Happy. Fulfilled. Everything else you said.”

“That’s good,” Rose sighed. “Because we have some visitors coming tonight.”

“Oh?”

She grinned, highlighting her entire face in that beautiful glow only Rose Tico could possess. “Ben and Rey want to stop by with Poe and see the school. Meet your students. Tell you everything you’re doing wrong,” she teased. “How does that sound?”

Finn looked out over the heads of his students, then beyond, to the encroaching clouds promising rain. The replenishment of life inevitable as that water soaked into the ground, absorbed for nutrients by the plants beneath his feet, feeding the insects and fauna that would make their way through this small meadow as his students waited for the ground to dry so they might partake in their shenanigans outdoors once more.

He smiled.

“It sounds wonderful.”

**END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ey yo whaddup, it's ya gurl, makeshiftcandy, comin' atchu with our final update for this story.
> 
> I didn't ever intend to post this story - it started out as a sort of self-indulgence that spiraled into an angst-filled search for self-healing.
> 
> I'm happy I wrote it. I'm happy I constructed an ending that I felt fit the characters that we all care about so much. I hope I did them justice in the eyes of my readers.
> 
> As always, a huge thank you to my absolutely lovely beta, [Lindsay](https://twitter.com/donegan_who/), who has been my biggest supporter and my absolute rock throughout this process. Who encouraged me and inspired me to write the sequences at my own pace, so the story unfolded organically. Who has become an incredible friend through this journey, because she started out as a reader and decided to reach out to me on Tumblr.
> 
> I'm not on Tumblr much anymore, but you can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ebongawk/) instead. If you have any questions about the story or just want to chat, feel free to message me. My DMs are always open.
> 
> Thank you all so much to everyone who maintained their patience in the discovery and unfolding of this story. Thank you to everyone who reached out, who left comments and kudos and drove me to the end. You helped more than I can ever ascertain, and I appreciate all of you endlessly.
> 
> I'll be around, starting a new AU project shortly.
> 
> Comments and kudos give me life, and thank you all so much again.


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